Linguistic Pedantry

Some of us are occasionally tempted to correct others for poor use of language.

The obvious response is “Language changes.” (And “Don’t be such a jerk.”)

But sometimes it matters. This morning I was looking at the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 (https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026). In this case “developer” means “computer programmer”.

“This year, we’re finding survey respondents are less happy in their work—…”. That’s clear and unsurprising, I was not expecting to learn that developers to be happier. It continues “…the numbers are showing less happy folks and more unhappy ones.”

Wait, are we talking about folks who are not as happy, or are we talking about folks who are plenty happy, just not as many? There is a difference. For example, one might talk about there being multitudes of red cars but they are not as bright red as they used to be, or one might talk about cars that are very red, but not as many of them.

The two meanings are different. And it would change the scenery in your morning commute.

In this case I would have been less confused had they said “This year, we’re finding survey respondents are less happy in their work—the numbers are showing fewer happy folks and more unhappy ones.”

I know, I know, how dare I read carefully and care about what is written.

Also, if my language needs correcting, please correct me.