Why could I not counter that your supposedly “wrongheaded” guide writers agreed with Baker and passed that advice to their readers, some of whom followed it and passed along the example in their writing?
The fact is, today the countable distinction for the use of “less” and “fewer” has gained a fair amount of sway. Like Baker, I think it sounds better (although perhaps I’ve been brainwashed by the wrongheaded!), and as an editor I will consistently apply it in the writing that comes under my pen.
There may be a lot of boneheaded “rules” that make no sense (split infinitives, for instance), but once they are out there, good writers and editors will observe them most of the time, if only to avoid annoying corrections from pedants who think they know better. Of course, if there’s a good reason to break a “rule,” go for it. But don’t be surprised when you hear about it.
The thing that cheeses me off about less/fewer is that the “rule” has become so prevalent that some people apparently think “fewer” should always be used instead of “less.” I recently heard a reporter on NPR speak about a trip that was “five miles fewer” than some other. :rolleyes:
Well, as long as you recognize the distinction between a true grammatical error and your own very odd aesthetic preferences (lots of people say they care about the less/fewer distinction, but few actually naturally follow it. I’d be surprised if you truly found its violations jarring; they’re simply too common). You can circle one in red ink and say “I prefer the sound of ‘fewer’ here” if you want, but if an author counters “Well, I actually prefer the sound of ‘less’ here and I don’t see why that should be a problem”, will you let it go?
It’s not clear to me if you’re saying people misunderstand the rule as saying “Never use less; always use fewer”, or just that they apply the rule properly but in cases where it reveals itself to be particularly ill-suited. Certainly, strict observance of the rule would demand “five less miles” be replaced by “five fewer miles” , “miles” being countable.
You should have visited my undergrad geology department. If you didn’t write - and write well - you were in big trouble. Now, I agree that some science departments don’t emphasize writing skills, but IME, writing was an integral part of undergrad science education. My advisor was a stickler on grammer, spelling, punctuation, you name it. He had to be - we were preparing to enter a field where your job depends on what you publish. Some of us even did publish work as undergraduates. We also wrote constantly. Every class had some sort of writing assignment, from mock grant proposals to literature reviews to our required senior theses.
As a result of all that, I now have an 80+ page honors thesis that I can confidently show to future employers, a professional paper in the works and a grounding in writing skills that I never would have received in a humanities class. (I actually had Religion and English professors compliment me on my writing for their classes. And then act surprised that I was a geology major, but I suppose that’s just another reflection of the belief that science majors can’t write.)
So, I can at least speak for the geologists that I know when I say that darn tootin’ we can write.
Well, it’s hardly my own or very odd, given how widely the “rule” is known. As for accepting it from an author, it would depend on the context of course, but unless the author was a) a very good writer and b) had a strong argument on his side, I probably wouldn’t allow it to stand. But since I’m the final arbiter on style for my publication, that’s my prerogative.
You don’t understand the rule: by countable, we mean units that are natural wholes, not continuous properties. Fewer people, apples, dumptrucks; less distance, weight, etc. It’s less than five miles from here, this bag weighs three pounds less than the other.
Oh, and unless you’re British, you’re pissing me off by putting commas and periods outside quotation marks. Cut it out!
I was simply pointing out that, grammatically, “miles” is a countable noun. I understand that measurable quantities are where “less” is used (thus, “The distance from here to X is five miles less than the distance from here to Y”), but given that “miles” is a countable noun, there certainly seems to be an interpretation of the rule under which “How many miles have we traveled?” “Let’s see… eighty. That’s five fewer miles than yesterday” is to be used.
Oh, heh, yeah, I (mostly) follow the British quotation mark-punctuation interaction rules, despite being an American. It’s always made more sense to me and it doesn’t seem to cause that much trouble. That one I actually see merit in an editor enforcing consistency on, though, so I’d be happy to have you red ink me up on that for an American publication.
Or, to clarify, when you are counting miles, it seems to me the rule would say to use “fewer”. When you are measuring distances in units of miles, it seems to me the rule would say to use “less”. But it doesn’t matter; it’s not really the case that we have “the rule” and “the right interpretation”; it doesn’t exist in a single codified universal form (and, of course, my argument was that it doesn’t have significant merit or legitimacy to begin with).
Have you done any computer programming? Most of the Americans I know who put the commas outside do so because in coding putting them inside will usually generate an error. So it is literally illogical.
But in general writing, the justification for the rule is not logical, but aesthetic: a poor little old comma or period just looks kind of naked and lonely outside the nice warm quotes.
Yeah, I have a strong programming background, and I do get the sense that Americans with that background often tend to prefer the British system (or something much closer to it than the American system). I don’t decry the American system as entirely illogical, as such, (like you said, it’s an aesthetically motivated choice, and like I said, I’m cool with particular publishers enforcing the American style) but I personally prefer the look of the British system. Clearly, there are aesthetic principles beyond the obvious “logic” involved in what I do as well, though; I never write anything like
even though the obvious “logical” thing to do might be to use two periods in that fashion.
Distance and weight may be continuous properties, but miles and pounds are discrete units that can be counted.
I know this wasn’t directed at me, but I thought I’d share the reason I put my punctuation outside of quotation marks. (I see in your later response to Indistinguishable that you know that, but others might benefit from seeing the explanation written out.)
Bingo - the good old “revise resubmit” can be triggered by poor grammar. I have seen that in more than one review of journal articles. In addition, you can also get nailed for readability in your grant proposal. If the proposal is poorly written, the readers are distracted, and more likely to NOT put in the time to check the actual science.
Perhaps, I should not have used quotes, since that misleads one into thinking that it is a direct quotation. I’ve forgotten the exact condition; it was years ago. I did not actually say “the condition holds”; I said something like “the account is active”. But of course, I don’t remember the exact condition.
The second sentence is not quite correct. I would say something like this:
Reading your revision, I suppose I need to work on providing context in previous sentences so that the current sentence can be interpreted unambiguously. I usually use embedded clauses and phrases to restrict my meaning to precisely what I want. But I think when the embedding becomes too deep, readers lose track.
Yes, many programmers I know use this style of punctuation–I do too. Sadly, it seems that some people were never told that the conventions of style in a natural language should not be applied to the syntax of a formal language.
