fewer vs less

@hawkeye10,

That pet peeves thread was really something. It contained pretty much every nonsensical prescription that was ever penned about English.

1 Reply

@JTT,

What you're missing here, is that the original poster wants a prescriptive rule.

Have you actually answered the original poster and told him or her what word he or she should use?

You're not in an academic setting, here; someone just wants to know what to use.

1 Reply

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

those folks [...] who spread fabrications about language and how it works.

You are a loony. As is widely recognised by everybody except the poor bloody ESL learners who come on here, ask a simple question appropriate for their level of learning progress, and get their thread derailed by a nutty trolling rant from Professor JTT Dickhead.

2 Replies

@DrewDad,

Quote:

What you're missing here, is that the original poster wants a prescriptive rule.

That is one of the dumbest things that I've ever heard, DD. ... No, wait, I think that I've heard that from some others.

But regardless, what Ms Tan wrote was,

Quote:

Rafi counted 20 slices of pie, but I had counted fewer/less than that.

Should I use 'fewer' or 'less'?

That's not asking for a prescriptive rule.

Why would anyone ever ask for a prescriptive rule when they wanted to know how English works. Prescriptive rules aren't about English. They were made up rules that didn't describe how English operates.

Quote:

Have you actually answered the original poster and told him or her what word he or she should use?

Yes, I provided a link which gave her a very thorough description of how fewer/less is used in English.

Quote:

You're not in an academic setting, here; someone just wants to know what to use.

I know exactly where I am and what I'm doing, DrewDad. I have had long experience teaching EFL/ESLs.

Without rancor, it's people like you coming along repeating old canards that makes it much much more difficult for students to advance in language acquisition.

1 Reply

@contrex,

Contrex, you really are one stupid asshole!

You come here dumping this bullshit all over the thread. I have to come behind you and clean up yours and others messes.

And still from you, there's nothing on the issue. Please tell me that you didn't actually take money from people for English lessons.

0 Replies

@tanguatlay,

Quote:

Rafi counted 20 slices of pie, but I had counted fewer/less than that.
Should I use 'fewer' or 'less'?Thanks.

'Fewer' is ok but is used less often than 'less' to (amusingly?)paraphrase one of JTT's nonpareil linked references which are thoroughly worth reading for background.

I particularly enjoy using 'fewer' in the context of 'no fewer' eg.

"JTT successfully oppugned no fewer than 5 incorrect prescriptive aspersions in a golden display."

Turning to other aspects of the sentence, I prefer to use either two hads or no hads in the one sentence, although a case can be made to support the alternative, and I might elide the 'than that' on occasion:

Rafi counted 20 slices of pie but I counted less than that

Rafi counted 20 slices of pie but I counted less

I counted fewer slices of pie than the 20 Rafi counted

My count was less than Rafi's 20 slices of pie

Rafi is a cream pie when it comes to counting and I've told him so on no fewer than 15 but less than 20 occasions when food fights were on for young and old

0 Replies

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

\Without rancor, it's people like you coming along repeating old canards that makes it much much more difficult for students to advance in language acquisition.

I think you may have some kind of cognitive problem. Can you show me where I've "repeat[ed] old canards?"

2 Replies

@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

I think you may have some kind of cognitive problem.

That's putting it mildly.

1 Reply

I could offer an example which might better illustrate my opinion here:

"There were few enough of us here last year, but this year, due to resignation of several older members, we are fewer."

I would not write "we are less" as an alternative phrase, because the meaning is unclear, the sentence incomplete. We are not lesser men, nor have we been on a weight-reduction diet. "Less" what?
For completeness, one would have to write "we are less numerous" or similar phrase.
The use of "fewer" in that context does the job more neatly, without ambiguity, and without further questions being begged.

That is one example of why it is useful to have a word which specifically relates to number, headcount, numerical quantity better than the catch-all "less".

0 Replies

@DrewDad,

Quote:

Can you show me where I've "repeat[ed] old canards?"

To me, when you suggested, "What you're missing here, is that the original poster wants a prescriptive rule", you seemed to be plumping for the prescriptive rule, which, to me, is the same as repeating an old canard, because an old canard is what that prescription is .

1 Reply

@contrex,

Once more, you fail to address the issue.

You do have a major cognition problem, Contrex; your failure to think when it comes to language issues. Just what did you learn as an English major?

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@JTT,

To me, repeating an old canard is actually repeating the old canard.

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

What was your intent then, of that post, DrewDad, if not to plump for the canard?

1 Reply

@tanguatlay,

Quote:

Rafi counted 20 slices of pie, but I had counted fewer/less than that.

Should I use 'fewer' or 'less'?

Fewer. Fewer generally applies to things which can be counted (integers) while less applies more to continuums (sand, water, time etc).

People, dogs, cats, birds, and slices of pie are all things which can be counted as integers.

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

You don't know **** from shinola, Gunga.

You're repeating the same nonsense that you were either taught way back when or you, like a lot of Americans, have a style manual at home to further mislead you in the workings of language.

0 Replies

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

What was your intent then, of that post, DrewDad, if not to plump for the canard?

My point was that the guy's ESL, and doesn't need to read a dissertation (in English, no less) on the ways the less/fewer argument has changed in the last 20 years.

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

Quote:

My point was that the guy's ESL, and doesn't need to read a dissertation (in English, no less) on the ways the less/fewer argument has changed in the last 20 years.

The guy's a lady, DD.

The canard is much older than that. Perhaps, before you venture into an area that you know little about, you should read the material. These changes haven't come in the last 20 years.

Quote:

The OED shows that less has been used of countables since the time of King Alfred the Great -- he used it that way in one of his own translations from Latin -- more than a thousand years ago (in about 888). So essentially less has been used of countables in English for just about as long as there has been a written English language. After about 900 years Robert Baker opined that fewer might be more elegant and proper. Almost every usage writer since Baker has followed Baker's lead, and generations of English teachers have swelled the chorus. The result seems to be a fairly large number of people who now believe less used of countables to be wrong, though its standardness is easily demonstrated.

1 Reply

@JTT,

In other words, you'd rather be a pedantic ass instead of address the actual points that I brought up.

Somehow, I'm not surprised.

1 Reply

@contrex,

contrex wrote:

JTT wrote:
those folks [...] who spread fabrications about language and how it works.

You are a loony. As is widely recognised by everybody except the poor bloody ESL learners who come on here....

A loony with a cause! If you have missed the political subtext of the specific loony you were addressing, be advised that JTT's milieu communicates in:

http://media.us.macmillan.com/jackets/258H/9780809028160.jpg

Quote:

[the author] chronicles his studies of creoles—the bastard tongues of the title—isolated languages with dubious and disputed parentage spoken by the lower classes.

JTT has invested so much time in learning to "speak proper" (as I'm reliably told speaking standard English is known in those circles) that he has conflated that effort with struggles against imperialism, colonialism, the US, Western civilization, class wars, racial discrimination, slavery, and on, and on. In that loony's tiny mind, standard English is yet another instrument of social and political oppression. Just leave him on perpetual ignore - most posters here do.

1 Reply

@McTag,

McTag wrote:

I spend some of my time here as a moderating influence on the worst excesses of JTT.....The luddites are everywhere...

There was such unswerving consistency in JTT's posts - back when I used to read them - that for the longest time I thought JTT can only be an AI (artificial intelligence) program that was somehow let loose to trawl the net. My old AI teacher described the necessary programming with precision :

Quote:

The fact that the mind is a product of natural laws does not imply that it is equipped to understand these laws or to arrive at them by “abduction.” There would be no difficulty in designing a device (say, programming a computer) that is a product of natural law, but that, given data, will arrive at any arbitrarily absurd theory to “explain” these data.

JTT proves there's no difficulty for humans either in arriving at arbitrarily absurd theories; providing him with more data only makes his problems worse Smile

1 Reply

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