# Is "less vocabulary" grammatical, & does Cecil write his own headlines?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-less-vocabulary-grammatical-does-cecil-write-his-own-headlines/419052
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [September 13, 2007, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-less-vocabulary-grammatical-does-cecil-write-his-own-headlines/419052 "2007-09-13T09:32:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Pret-a-Poster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8c91f0/32.png) [@Pret-a-Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pret-a-Poster)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2007, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-less-vocabulary-grammatical-does-cecil-write-his-own-headlines/419052/1 "2007-09-13T09:32:13Z")

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Does the average American student have less vocabulary today than in days gone by?Is that a correct usering of “less”? Shouldn’t it be “fewer”? ::joke::

1. Seriously, though, I’ve heard of people having a limited vocabulary, a smaller vocabulary, but never “less vocabulary”. Is that a newly coined phrase?

2. Since the word in question is in the headline and not the text, could it be the work of a Reader editor rather than Cecil, or does he write his own his headlines?

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### Author: ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2007, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-less-vocabulary-grammatical-does-cecil-write-his-own-headlines/419052/2 "2007-09-13T11:07:35Z")

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Since this is a specific question about one of Cecil’s columns, I’ve moved it CoCC.

**samclem** GQ moderator

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### Author: ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2007, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-less-vocabulary-grammatical-does-cecil-write-his-own-headlines/419052/3 "2007-09-13T12:22:28Z")

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Since the question already exists in a previous thread, I’ll close this one and direct further comment to the earlier one: [On the title of the vocabulary column - Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=436119)

Prêt-à-Poster, for future reference, posting the same question twice in two different SDMB forums is called cross-posting and is not allowed here.

bibliophage  
moderator CCC