Beating (less) dead horses: less or fewer

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

When to use “less” and when to use “fewer”. Fewer people today care about the issue, resulting in less discussion about the distinctions.* Style guides counsel writers that “fewer” is used with count nouns, like people, and “less” is used with non-count nouns, like discussions. So far, so good, and almost nobody would churn out the sentence “Less people today care about the issue, resulting in fewer discussion about the distinctions.”

Speaking of discussion, an old Language Log post looked at a book review complaining that the book in question “could have done with less sociological jargon and fewer annoying italics.”

Geoff Pullum said that should be “less annoying italics”. Why? Less is used before plurals and collective nouns like people. Italics is “one of those morphological plurals … that function as a non-count singular.” Politics and linguistics are others.**

Yeah, but. Isn’t the sentence as written elided, with the fuller version being something like “fewer examples of [or words in] annoying italics”. I certainly read it that way. Perhaps Pullum would say that italics is the wrong word in that case, and “less annoying italicizing” would be better. “Italicizing” is a gerund here, used like a singular noun. Although I’d say that the verb italicizing can produce the noun italics.

I usually argue that rewriting sentences may be better for style but that the sentence as given is the base for grammar.

I admit Language Log has always bugged me, because sometimes it bogs down in the most fussily correct pedantic jargon*** and sometimes rolls with changing language, all under an “only we are right” smarminess. I usually land on “Even if they’re right, modern usage doesn’t much care.” This is a case where I can’t decide for myself. I throw myself on the mercy of the Court.

*I found a Dope thread titled “Are there less horses nowadays?”, hence the title.

**Italics does have a singular, italic, as in “bold, italic, and underline,” but I don’t think that’s relevant here.

***“With all verbs except the copula (be), the preterite inflectional form is used to signal what the irrealis form were signifies in the case of the copula.”

2

Nope, nope, nope.

I have less fewer in me than I used to.

Know what I mean?

:blush:

3

Can’t decide. . .what, exactly? I read through it three times and don’t really see a question. I will say that most news programs get it wrong on a regular basis. Reporters are always saying ‘less’ when they should be saying ‘fewer’. Makes me crazy.

4

I agree. That’s how I read it.

5

Stannis Baratheon cares.

I like your first version more but I’m not sure why. It just sounds more natural. I think both could be said to be correct.

6

Is Pullum wrong when he said the word should have been less instead of fewer?

I think you have three options. One is that nobody is being taught proper grammar these days. The second is that stupider people are being hired for news reporting. The third is that modern usage is blurring the distinctions.

We must have had hundreds of threads carping that “people don’t talk/write the way I was taught in high school.” Some of that stems from the way teachers used to work off a set of prescriptive rules that were easy to memorize and could be marked right or wrong. Almost everybody today - especially including Pullum - knows that those rules were often made-up nonsense by fake pedants and almost always capable of far more nuance and exceptions. That’s why style guides exist and no two are identical, which they should be if prescriptive rules were really rules.

Sometimes worthwhile distinctions do get lost. Using literally as figuratively was worthwhile, but that battle is lost. Who/whom is gone and good riddance. May/might is heading that way. OTOH, using their to refer to anyone is a victory.

7

Yeah, the language constantly changes over time and being stuck in some groove is pretty meaningless. Still, “less people” still grates on my nerves. :smiley:

8

I would say fewer discussions since discussions is used as a count noun. Here is one case where the distinction makes a difference. Less discussion means stop discussing it sooner, while fewer discussions means not having as many instances of discussing it.

Although I am fairly careful about the distinction myself, I also recognize that for the most part it is pointless and the antonym is always more. Cf. more discussion vs. more discussions.

9

Yeah, and the internet is the place to grump about anything that great’s on you’re nerves. I got nerves you could sprinkle on pizza. Some battles aren’t worth fighting, though.

I’ve been hate-reading a book on language I found, one written by an incredibly conservative (also casually racist) Brit during the Thatcher era. He hated everything that wasn’t done in his youth, from usage to pronunciation and, of course, rock music. He footnotes himself in this collection of newspaper columns, admitting that he didn’t bother to check the OED before complaining about newfangled usages. Language Log, had it been around, would have stangled him with his own intestines.

10

You might try Bill Bryson’s book on language. Amusing and informative.

Oh, and the word is “grates”. :laughing:

11

While I think Language Log has a lot of useful and informative posts, Geoffrey Pullum himself strikes me as a contrarian jerk and the most useful posts in LL tend to come from Liberman or the many other contributors.

How about Option 1 + Option 2 = the result described in Option 3?

I’m pretty sure that was intentional sarcasm on the part of @Exapno_Mapcase ! :grin:

I would say that’s exactly right and an excellent example of the distinction.

12

I dislike Pullum’s suggestion, although will allow that either formation is probably acceptable. And perhaps even that Pullum’s is “technically correct” (not always the best kind of correct…).

I don’t like “less annoying italics” because to me it can be read as italics that are not as annoying. “Less” modifying “annoying” rather than “italics”. I prefer fewer because it seems to me that what we are really talking about are “instances of the usage of italics”. That is countable, and so it should be “fewer”.

Perhaps a cleaner expression would be “fewer annoying italicized phrases”. That avoids the semantic quibble about whether the word italics is a plural or singular noun.

13

Some people say that “less” can’t be used with counted things. Those people are wrong. “<” is the “less than symbol”, not the “fewer than symbol”. “5 < 7” is read as “five is less than seven”.

14

Yeah, this.

15

“Five” as in “the concept of the fifth whole number” is not really a countable noun. And you’d obviously say that “Five apples are fewer than seven apples”.

Five of something are countable (obviously - there are five of them). Five, the concept itself, is not.

If there are seven oranges, how many sevens are there? See, doesn’t make sense.

16

Seven apples is _______ than five apples.

I think most would agree that “greater” is perfectly fine there. Why such the fuss about the opposite? Is it really confusing if someone uses lesser rather than fewer?

17

I was listening to an NPR interview a few weeks ago with the president of Merriam-Webster because they are releasing their first new edition in many years very soon. The interviewer mentioned “irregardless” as a joke and the president said it is actually a legit word. It is not wrong. Not because it makes linguistic sense but because it has become so common they now count it as a word that can be properly used when writing/speaking.

I told my GF about this (she is an editor) and she was not happy about it at all. This kind of weakening the language bugs her to no end (me too but she definitely cares about it more than most…which I like about her).

ETA: If interested you can listen to it here (it is interesting…mostly a discussion of the business side of it all):

18

That sounds off, I’d definitely say that seven apples is more than five apples.

19

That does seem to work but we often say “more or less.” If we assume these are two sides of the same coin is “more” really correct here? (I am not sure)

20

You know what, I have to agree…“more than” sounds “better” to my ears.

Anyway language is funny and it really can’t be “weakened” in any meaningful way.