# Less vs. Fewer: Why are there two words? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 9, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238 "2009-06-09T20:02:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/21 "2009-06-10T02:49:48Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Sorry, but I give this one to **Indistinguishable** , MWCDEU’s claim to fame is being an _evidence-based_ handbook of English grammar. That is, it reviews English as it used in both its literary and vernacular modes, as well as the history of prescription. This goes a hell of a lot further than nebulous, anemic claims of “that which grates” among habitués of a fairly unrepresentative internet message board. Then you should have no trouble fulfilling **Spectre of Pithecanthropus** ’s request for modern academic or journalistic examples of the quantity usage of _less_. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/22 "2009-06-10T02:50:58Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > It’s like boogers and snot. If you can count them, they’re boogers, if you have to weigh it, it’s snot. I though it was mucus, but it’s not. Man, I never get tired of that ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/23 "2009-06-10T03:02:28Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > Then you should have no trouble fulfilling **Spectre of Pithecanthropus** ’s request for modern academic or journalistic examples of the quantity usage of _less_. I believe one usage found to be objectionable was “less cars.” [Here](http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=source%3A%22new+york+times%22+%22less+cars%22&btnG=Search&um=1&ned=us&hl=en&scoring=a) is a link to 65 citations from the _New York Times_ alone using that disfavored locution. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/24 "2009-06-10T03:17:54Z")
Bahh…I just use 1/more and am done with it 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/25 "2009-06-10T03:28:33Z")
Re: **Q.E.D.** : My point is that English speakers haven’t adopted it as the unaffected norm; it’s generally only confirmation bias which leads some to think they generally notice instances of “less” with countables as grating most of the time, when, in fact, most must pass by without causing any severe annoyance, or else one would live in a constant state of frustration. Re: **Spectre of Pithecanthropus** : From John Updike’s “Gertrude and Claudius”, p.57: “Gerwindil was a godless brute who never did anything on less than three goblets of mead”. p. 156: “One less witness, if witnesses were ever sought.” Finding examples in academic articles is too easy. Just a random smattering: Top of page 2, [“Polygons have ears”](http://www.jstor.org/stable/2319703), American Mathematical Monthly 1975: “…or else is a Jordan polygon with more than three vertices, but with one less vertex than P, so that…”. Second paragraph, second page of [“A land-bridge island perspective on mammalian extinction in western North American parks”](http://www.montana.edu/paleoecology/GEOG302/Newmark_1987.pdf), Nature 1987: “it had been sighted less than five times since… Species which had been sighted less than three times since…” [“fewer” is also used in similar contexts as well, in keeping with my point that the two are both acceptable]. [“On the strength of comparisons in property testing”](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WGK-4B0PRV2-1&_user=4420&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000059607&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4420&md5=f319db678291019fe20294ac4c9a33cd), Information and Computation, Feb. 25 2004: in abstract, “…cannot perform less queries (in the worst case) than…”, top of second page: “cannot be modified in e\*d or less places to make it satisfy P”, middle of page 115 “we make (less than (2k - 1)! \<= (2t - 1)!) queries according to…” And, from page 5 of [“Removal of precursors for disinfection by-products (DBPs) — differences between ozone- and OH-radical-induced oxidation”](http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0048969700003776) in The Science of Total Environment", June 22 2000: “Therefore, less OH-radicals are formed”. ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/26 "2009-06-10T03:53:36Z")
> [@CJJ](#): > > Many people would disagree–at least in part–but it would take too much time to explain… I saw what you did there. Made me laugh, it did. Perhaps many more will laugh, too. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/27 "2009-06-10T04:12:46Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > “Gerwindil was a godless brute who never did anything on less than three goblets of mead”. I tend to use “fewer” for countable things, if only for the fact that lots of people think “less” is wrong. I would however use “less” in the same manner as the quote above because the thing being counted can easily have fractions. Consider the same sentence, but with a slightly more temperate Gerwindil. “Gerwindil … never did anything on less than two and a half goblets of mead.” It seems to me that “fewer than two and a half” doesn’t make sense. Personally I would say “fewer than 10 cars” (can’t really have a fraction of a car without using an absurd example) but “less than 10 litres of wine.” That said, I wouldn’t correct anyone saying “less than 10 cars” or “fewer than 10 litres of wine.” ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/28 "2009-06-10T04:19:35Z")
I’m not sure why, but I promise to work on it as soon as I get the flammable / inflammable / nonflammable thing worked out. I keep thinking that two words should be able to cover that subject. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/29 "2009-06-10T04:42:32Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > wouldn’t the word “greater” be to “less” as more is to fewer? If someone told me they had “greater cars” than someone else, I would assume they meant their cars were faster or more reliable or more tricked out (depending on their tastes), not that they had a greater _number_ of cars. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/30 "2009-06-10T05:40:57Z")
> [@Lord\_Mondegreen](#): > > I tend to use “fewer” for countable things, if only for the fact that lots of people think “less” is wrong. I would however use “less” in the same manner as the quote above because the thing being counted can easily have fractions. Consider the same sentence, but with a slightly more temperate Gerwindil. “Gerwindil … never did anything on less than two and a half goblets of mead.” It seems to me that “fewer than two and a half” doesn’t make sense. Fair enough. Replace that example with “Coincidentally, Mistry writes about Parsis, a minority of less than a hundred thousand in India, …”, from John Updike’s article in The New Yorker [here](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/09/30/020930crbo_books1). ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/31 "2009-06-10T05:41:56Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > I’m not sure why, but I promise to work on it as soon as I get the flammable / inflammable / nonflammable thing worked out. I keep thinking that two words should be able to cover that subject. Dont. Do. It. Man. Everybody I know that has tried has gotten burned. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/32 "2009-06-10T06:18:53Z")
> [@](#): > > **indistinguishable** : …though it ended up being codified nonetheless in an awful lot of wrongheaded usage guides, the sort which rarely bother to take a glance at reality. (Another choice quote from the excerpt: "This approach is quite common in handbooks and schoolbooks…) Questions for you on a most delicious subject! 1. What do you mean by the word _codified_? (No references to “code” please.) 2. How do you determine if a usage guide is “wrongheaded”? And how is that even possible? 3. By “reality,” do you mean what is currently in use in any given local? If so, should “reality” be the standard? 4. How can a handbook “glance” at anything? **Merriam-Webster’s Concise Dictionary of English Usage** is an impressive source. The **Harbrace College Handbook** is still considered the standard, to the best of my knowledge, for American universities. I think they are probably up to their sixteenth edition by now. The most recent that I have is the eleventh from 1990: > [@](#): > > _Fewer_ used with plural nouns) refers to number and (less) (used with singular nouns) to amount. There were **fewer** dogs in the yard today, so we used **less** dog food. As for the examples that you gave: Some of them did not make me winch as much as I thought that they would, but that has to do with the complexity of the sentences, I think. Still others made me shudder. I would not expect someone savagely brilliant in science to always catch the differences in _less_ and _fewer_ in an academic paper when the focus is elsewhere. An English professor should before it is submitted for publication. Of course, the professor may work for Webster’s and disagree. Here’s another take from **Webster’s Collegiate** : > [@](#): > > The traditional view is that _less_ applies to matters of degree, value, or amount and modifies collective nouns, mass nouns, or nouns denoting an abstract whole while _fewer_ applies to matters of numbers and modifies plural nouns. {i]Less has been used to modify plural nouns since the days of King Alfred and the usage, though roundly decried, appears to be increasing. _Less_ is more likely than _fewer_ to modify plural nouns where distances, sums of money, and a few fixed phrases are involved (less than one hundred miles)(an investment of less than $2000)(in twenty-five words or less) and as likely as _fewer_ to modify periods of time (in less \ than four hours. I really liked it better just following **Harbrace**. It was fewer confusing. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/33 "2009-06-10T06:20:39Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Re: **Q.E.D.** : > My point is that English speakers haven’t adopted it as the unaffected norm; it’s generally only confirmation bias which leads some to think they generally notice instances of “less” with countables as grating most of the time, when, in fact, most must pass by without causing any severe annoyance, or else one would live in a constant state of frustration. > > Re: **Spectre of Pithecanthropus** : > From John Updike’s “Gertrude and Claudius”, p.57: “Gerwindil was a godless brute who never did anything on less than three goblets of mead”. The adverb is in agreement not with goblets, which are countable, but with the mead which is not. > [@](#): > > p. 156: “One less witness, if witnesses were ever sought.” Again, one less than the number of witnesses previously referred to or implied. It couldn’t be “one fewer witness(es).” It’s like “one less bell to answer” or “one less egg to fry”. > [@](#): > > Finding examples in academic articles is too easy. Just a random smattering: > Top of page 2, [“Polygons have ears”](http://www.jstor.org/stable/2319703), American Mathematical Monthly 1975: “…or else is a Jordan polygon with more than three vertices, but with one less vertex than P, so that…”. Again, we’re talking about a subtraction of one thing. I would be more convinced if your example said “…with three less vertices than P, so that…” > [@](#): > > Second paragraph, second page of [“A land-bridge island perspective on mammalian extinction in western North American parks”](http://www.montana.edu/paleoecology/GEOG302/Newmark_1987.pdf), Nature 1987: “it had been sighted less than five times since… Species which had been sighted less than three times since…” [“fewer” is also used in similar contexts as well, in keeping with my point that the two are both acceptable]. I’ll concede that this has a little more merit, at least IMO. Still it’s not what the OP is talking about. “Less cars on the road” is what grates. Or “less people going to the mall because of the recession.” Nobody here is harping on anyone for saying three is less than five, or San Francisco’s population is less than a million, or that you can buy a certain TV for less than $400. > [@](#): > > [“On the strength of comparisons in property testing”](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WGK-4B0PRV2-1&_user=4420&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000059607&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4420&md5=f319db678291019fe20294ac4c9a33cd), Information and Computation, Feb. 25 2004: in abstract, “…cannot perform less queries (in the worst case) than…”, top of second page: “cannot be modified in e\*d or less places to make it satisfy P”, middle of page 115 “we make (less than (2k - 1)! \<= (2t - 1)!) queries according to…” Again: referring to a quantity of e^d or less. That’s not the issue here. > [@](#): > > And, from page 5 of [“Removal of precursors for disinfection by-products (DBPs) — differences between ozone- and OH-radical-induced oxidation”](http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0048969700003776) in The Science of Total Environment", June 22 2000: “Therefore, less OH-radicals are formed”. This one is yours. It is exactly the sort of thing we’re talking about, it does grate, and you have given us a worthy example. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/34 "2009-06-10T06:29:34Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Again, one less than the number of witnesses previously referred to or implied. It couldn’t be “one fewer witness(es).” It’s like “one less bell to answer” or “one less egg to fry”. I’m not sure I understand. Why wouldn’t it be, according to your alleged rule, “one fewer witness/bell/egg”? They’re all count nouns, and we are indeed counting them rather than measuring them, so to speak; one wouldn’t discuss half a witness in this context (or answer half a bell or whatever). > [@](#): > > Again, we’re talking about a subtraction of one thing. I would be more convinced if your example said “…with three less vertices than P, so that…” I don’t see why subtraction changes anything, but ok; perhaps, I suppose you must say, you just hadn’t yet in this thread articulated the alleged rule to the level of refinement you intended. > [@](#): > > I’ll concede that this has a little more merit, at least IMO. Still it’s not what the OP is talking about. “Less cars on the road” is what grates. Or “less people going to the mall because of the recession.” Nobody here is harping on anyone for saying three is less than five, or San Francisco’s population is less than a million, or that you can buy a certain TV for less than $400. Is not “less than three times” an instance of using “less” with countables rather than measurables? But, alright; again, perhaps the alleged rule hadn’t yet been articulated to the level of refinement you intended… > [@](#): > > Again: referring to a quantity of e^d or less. That’s not the issue here. I don’t understand what the distinction you’re drawing is with that particular one, but anyway, I gave three examples from this paper, including, in the abstract, the exact phrase you asked for, “cannot handle less queries”. > [@](#): > > This one is yours. It is exactly the sort of thing we’re talking about, it does grate, and you have given us a worthy example. Hooray. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/35 "2009-06-10T07:03:48Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > I’m not sure I understand. Why wouldn’t it be, according to your alleged rule, “one fewer witness/bell/egg”? It’s because one thing is being subracted. But I could fry two fewer eggs, ring three fewer bells, etc. > [@](#): > > They’re all count nouns, and we are indeed counting them rather than measuring them, so to speak; one wouldn’t discuss half a witness in this context (or answer half a bell or whatever). > I don’t see why subtraction changes anything, but ok; perhaps, I suppose you must say, you just hadn’t yet in this thread articulated the alleged rule to the level of refinement you intended. Because it’s subtraction of one thing. [/quote] Is not “less than three times” an instance of using “less” with countables rather than measurables? But, alright; again, perhaps the alleged rule hadn’t yet been articulated to the level of refinement you intended… [/quote] I did concede your point on this one, although strange as it seems, numbers themselves aren’t always countable in the grammatical sense. > [@](#): > > I don’t understand what the distinction you’re drawing is with that particular one, but anyway, I gave three examples from this paper, including, in the abstract, the exact phrase you asked for, “cannot handle less queries”. > Hooray. You should indeed cheer. It’s not every day that someone returns with a point by point response that resulted from an earlier challenge or assertion. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/36 "2009-06-10T13:07:19Z")
As I get older I have fewer and fewer patience with this kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/37 "2009-06-10T16:58:53Z")
I think one motivating factor in the accusations of prescriptivism is the premise that English is supposed to simple, ,unlike all those confusing foreign languages with their verb conjugations, extra tenses, and noun declensions. So, the argument continues, given “less” and “fewer”, the meaning of either of which is sure to be understood from the context, it would be arrogant to designate one as correct. However: it is natural for human language to be complex. As I said in my first post, it is also natural for it to have grammatical redundancy. “Fewer eggs” vs “Less eggs”–we know from the word “eggs”, just by itself, that it is a countable thing. So, the descriptivists argue, what difference does it make to say “less” instead of “fewer”? Well, from the point of communication, none. We all understand what is meant and the use of “fewer” is not required as such to show that the word “eggs” is countable. But it just is. Other languages have similar redundancies. In German for example, it is usually necessary to mark the plurality of a noun not only by some inflection on the noun itself, but also on the article as well as the adjective in many cases. Why is it not enough just to mark one of the parts of speech? If German were a computer programming language, it would be enough, but we’re talking about a natural human language. As I mentioned in my first post, if complexity is lost in one area of grammar over time, it is invariably replaced by different complexity elsewhere. The case can be made that all spoken languages the world over are equally complex in one way or another. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/38 "2009-06-10T17:25:38Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I think one motivating factor in the accusations of prescriptivism is the premise that English is supposed to simple, ,unlike all those confusing foreign languages with their verb conjugations, extra tenses, and noun declensions. So, the argument continues, given “less” and “fewer”, the meaning of either of which is sure to be understood from the context, it would be arrogant to designate one as correct. However: it is natural for human language to be complex. As I said in my first post, it is also natural for it to have grammatical redundancy. “Fewer eggs” vs “Less eggs”–we know from the word “eggs”, just by itself, that it is a countable thing. So, the descriptivists argue, what difference does it make to say “less” instead of “fewer”? Well, from the point of communication, none. We all understand what is meant and the use of “fewer” is not required as such to show that the word “eggs” is countable. But it just is. Other languages have similar redundancies. In German for example, it is usually necessary to mark the plurality of a noun not only by some inflection on the noun itself, but also on the article as well as the adjective in many cases. Why is it not enough just to mark one of the parts of speech? If German were a computer programming language, it would be enough, but we’re talking about a natural human language. As I mentioned in my first post, if complexity is lost in one area of grammar over time, it is invariably replaced by different complexity elsewhere. > > The case can be made that all spoken languages the world over are equally complex in one way or another. Not really. The descriptivist’s objective is to describe language as it is used. The descriptivist does not make any appeal to simplicity or anything like that; rather, actual English usage, in the highest literary forms as well as the most common vernacular, is observed and conclusions about the rules of English are derived from that evidence instead of subjective notions of simplicity or whether something “grates.” Do some English speakers mark the use of “less” with a count noun? Sure they do, and it would be fair to say that in formal registers and prestige dialects, that usage is avoided. However, to say that “less cars” is an error or “not English” in the same way that “me are going to the store” is an error or “not English” is patently ridiculous. The phrase “less cars” is a perfectly natural use of English that occurs in the daily speech of millions of real-deal educated American English speakers. You have a style preference, which is perfectly ordinary and perfectly allowed. I myself dislike using the progressive aspect with stative verbs (as in, “Are you wanting to see a movie tonight?”). Nevertheless, however much the form “grates” on me, I would never pretend that people who use it are doing anything other than speaking unexceptionable American English. ---
**Author:** ![fandango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b5ac83/32.png) [@fandango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fandango)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/39 "2009-06-10T19:25:47Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > wouldn’t the word “greater” be to “less” as more is to fewer? I think a better analog would be “many” vs. “much” There were many deer in the forest and there was much forest in the park. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238/40 "2009-06-10T20:53:08Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > I believe one usage found to be objectionable was “less cars.” [Here](http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=source%3A%22new+york+times%22+%22less+cars%22&btnG=Search&um=1&ned=us&hl=en&scoring=a) is a link to 65 citations from the _New York Times_ alone using that disfavored locution. By changing “less” to “fewer”, I found 663. > **[Google News](https://news.google.com/home?as_drrb=a&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en)** > > Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, aggregated from sources all over the world by Google News. I think these kinds of debates are kind of pointless. You’re wrong if the majority thinks your wrong. And you’re only as wrong as the percentage of people who think you’re wrong. I could use the numbers to say that I (a person who thinks that the people who made the “one less” advertising campaign are idiots) am only 10% wrong, whereas you are 90% wrong. But what would be the point? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/less-vs-fewer-why-are-there-two-words/499238.md?page=3)