Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Grammar Girl, Grammar Girl's, QDnow, and Quick and Dirty Tips are all trademarks of Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Today's topic is "less" versus "fewer." Jeremy Millard grammar Will somebody PLEASE tell me why Microsoft would launch a campaign stating "I asked for less clicks, now it takes less clicks..." Does that bother anyone else? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=20761#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=20761#Comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:09:38 GMT Chris grammar This has always been a irritant for me, because it seems so obvious (to me at least) when to use less vs. fewer. However two commenters have remarked on one example that isn't obvious, because the statement itself is not really meaningful: "less calories" vs "fewer calories". The problem is there is no such thing as "a calorie". Calories are units of energy, and energy is not countable. So it is correct to say that a diet soda contains less energy than a regular soda. Saying it has "fewer calories" implies you can count calories, which you can't (despite the popular dieting motto). But less calories is also poor word choice, because it really means less energy, and it sounds awful. The same thing goes for time and distance measurements. Do we have fewer miles to travel, or less miles? Neither is actually meaningful, although replacing the word "distance" with the word "miles" is a useful shorthand that we all use. But in doing so we are confusing a non-countable measurement with a countable quantity, which leads to the unclear grammar rule. (And messing up this distinction in a scientific paper will get you some very nasty responses from journal editors.) On a side note, in my ten years teaching college physics, one of the easiest signs that a student is going to flunk is they have difficulty grasping the difference between something which can be counted (and therefore can be known exactly) and something which must be measured (and therefore is never known exactly). It's really the same distinction between "fewer" and "less". http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=19396#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=19396#Comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:16:34 GMT Polly Parish grammar Less has been used with count nouns ever since english was first written and can be found in literature from the 9th century onwards. It's used by such great english writers as Dickens, Trollope, Conrad, Lawrence and Hardy etc. This myth that it is wrong when used in sentences such as 10 items or less appears to originate from a book on grammar by Robert Baker published in 1780 in which he expressed an opinion that fewer sounds better in some circumstances. But an opinion was all it was, and he made no claim that the use of less was incorrect. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=19083#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=19083#Comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:29:25 GMT Mark grammar "I need less books" just doesn't sound right, but phrases like it ("The are just less jobs out there.") are used all the time lately. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=18731#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=18731#Comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:10:19 GMT charlotte grammar "I'm looking at my desk and I see books, pens, and M&M's." Spot the mistake , "Grammar" girl... M&M's ? Apostrophe? For the plural? Oh dear, oh dear. I don't know what's worse. That you committed this heinous crime or that checked for accuracy on the M&M site. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=18637#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=18637#Comments Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:25:32 GMT Omorose Panya grammar This isn't difficult for the most part. "Can I have fewer water" or "I need less books" just don't sound right. However, I never even thought about the express line! LOL! Reading through your comment section is always amusing. There's no reason (for them) to be so butt-tight and snippy about this. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=18530#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=18530#Comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:58:01 GMT jing grammar hi! can a statement that says 'a little furniture' be grammatically correct? my daughter's english test paper has this: I have a (little, a few) furniture at home. My daughter answered 'a few', teacher said it should be 'a little'. Please help out. I've never come across the determiner 'a little' being used with the mass noun 'furniture'. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=18529#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=18529#Comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:16:19 GMT Eric grammar I object! I see there is some discussion on the use of 'none' here. I sometimes read 'none...is' in the paper and it sounds horrible (when 'none...are' would have sounded much better). I know the logic behind this: that none comes from 'not one'. Whether or not (oops, redundancy) this is the case, I don't believe none MEANS 'not one', because if it did, then wouldn't it be spelled no'ne? So I finally looked it up in the dictionary and Oxford defines none as: 'not any (one)' and defines a plural as acceptable. So there you go, it it's ok by Oxford, it's ok by me. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=18392#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=18392#Comments Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:46:24 GMT Awan Ater grammar As I visited Grammar Girl today,"Fewer"a quantifier is used with count nouns and often preceded by "a." While " Less"which means not as great in amount or degree or "of less importance." http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=17536#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=17536#Comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:21:28 GMT mwgore grammar This is REALLY a pet peeve of mine. It's not that difficult. My daughter is a high school sophomore and has been brought up to respect proper grammar. When her English teacher (who has a DOCTORATE) used 'less' instead of the proper 'fewer', Sarah raised her hand and corrected her. (She lives on the edge, but proper grammar is important to her!) Her teacher TOLD HER IN FRONT OF THE CLASS that the words were interchangeable. Sarah took the opportunity to educate her on the difference. Several of her classmates backed her up. It's like "your" vs. "you're" - the fact that many people get it wrong doesn't make the rule any less valid! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=17451#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx?commentid=17451#Comments Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:21:04 GMT Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:09:38 GMT http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Managing Editor) feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Webmaster) en-us