Fewer versus less
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Fewer versus less is a debate in English grammar about the appropriate use of these two determiners. Linguistic prescriptivists usually say that fewer and not less should be used with countable nouns,[2] and that less should be used only with uncountable nouns. This distinction was first tentatively suggested by the grammarian Robert Baker in 1770,[3][1] and it was eventually presented as a rule by many grammarians since then.Template:Efn However, modern linguistics has shown that idiomatic past and current usage consists of the word less with both countable nouns and uncountable nouns so that the traditional rule for the use of the word fewer stands, but not the traditional rule for the use of the word less.[3] As Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage explains, "Less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured and to number among things that are counted."
Current usage
The comparative less is used with both countable and uncountable nouns in some informal discourse environments and in most dialects of English.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". In other informal discourse however, the use of fewer could be considered natural. For example, many supermarket checkout line signs read "10 items or less" while others use fewer reflecting the influence of prescriptive grammar on standard language practices. Descriptive grammarians consider this to be a case of hypercorrection as explained in Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage.[4][5] In 2008 a British supermarket chain replaced its "10 items or less" notices at checkouts with "up to 10 items" to avoid the issue.[6][7] It has also been noted that it is less common to favour "At fewest ten items" over "At least ten items" – a potential inconsistency in the "rule",[8] and a study of online usage seems to suggest that the distinction may, in fact, be semantic rather than grammatical.[5] Likewise, it would be very unusual to hear the unidiomatic "I have seen that film at fewest ten times."[9]Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
The Cambridge Guide to English Usage notes that the "pressure to substitute fewer for less seems to have developed out of all proportion to the ambiguity it may provide in noun phrases like less promising results". It describes conformance with this pressure as a shibboleth and the choice "between the more formal fewer and the more spontaneous less" as a stylistic choice.[10]
| aspect | original | comparative | superlative |
|---|---|---|---|
| [quantity] | few | fewer | fewest |
| [shape, appearance] | little | less | least |
| [quantity]: numbers.
[shape, appearance]: shape or form or face. | |||
Exceptions
Some prescriptivists prescribe the rule addition that less should be used with units of measurement of time, money, weight or distance (e.g. "less than 10 dollars").[11]
Some argue that the rare and unidiomatic[12] one fewer should be used instead of one less (both when used alone or together with a singular, discretely quantifiable noun as in "there is one fewer cup on this table"), but Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage says that "of course [less] follows one".[3]
Historical usage
Less has historically been used in English with countable nouns, but a distinction between the use of fewer and less is first recorded in the 18th century. On this, Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage notes,[3]
- As far as we have been able to discover, the received rule originated in 1770 as a comment on less: "This Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should think Fewer would do better. 'No Fewer than a Hundred' appears to me, not only more elegant than 'No less than a Hundred', but more strictly proper." (Robert Baker 1770).[13] Baker's remarks about 'fewer' express clearly and modestly – 'I should think,' 'appears to me' – his own taste and preference....Notice how Baker's preference has been generalized and elevated to an absolute status and his notice of contrary usage has been omitted."
The oldest use that the Oxford English Dictionary gives for less with a countable noun is a quotation from 888 by Alfred the Great:
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- ("With less words or with more, whether we may prove it.")
This is in fact an Old English partitive construction using the "quasi-substantive" adverb Script error: No such module "Lang". and the genitive Script error: No such module "Lang". ("less of words") (cf. plenty of words and *plenty words). When the genitive plural ceased to exist, less of words became less words, and this construction has been used since then until the present.[14]
See also
Footnotes
References
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- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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- ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ "Supermarket checkouts are correct when the signs they display read 5 items or less (which refers to a total amount), and are misguidedly pedantic when they read 5 items or fewer (which emphasizes individuality, surely not the intention)." (Oxford Dictionaries)
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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- ↑ Tesco is to change the wording of signs on its fast-track checkouts to avoid any linguistic dispute, BBC, August 2008.
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". (The subtitle refers to the 17th-century French grammarian Vaugelas.)
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