6 ms·

> Now we just need an agency to safeguard us against misusing "less" when "fewer" would be correct Genuinely curious, is this for pedantry, or does the word ch

by dduugg 3y ago

> Now we just need an agency to safeguard us against misusing "less" when "fewer" would be correct Genuinely curious, is this for pedantry, or does the word choice matter? Since the opposite of both is "more", why is there a need for a distinction in one direction and not the other?

cantSpellSober 3y ago
Does "The tank is too full, fill it with fewer water next time" sound correct to you? "Fewer" typically refers to countables, "10 items or fewer." "Less" is used for things that don't have a plural form or are not countable, "there's less water in the pool this morning."
- etothepii 3y ago
  The opposite of few maybe many, but many is not the opposite of fewer as the parent asks. Consider There are fewer people on the West Coast. There are many people on the East Coast. "Many," is not a comparator.
  - cantSpellSober 3y ago
    Fair enough, "additional" is an opposite of "fewer." I'll concede "more" is also. > The opposite of few maybe many "Maybe" is an adverb. Perhaps you meant "may be?" :)
    - mc32 3y ago
      Morether. Like further but with more.
      - teddyh 3y ago
        Moreover.
ghaff 3y ago
Less instead of fewer sort of bugs me. But I've even seen less used in The Economist when I would have thought fewer was more correct so I think the answer is it's pedantry at this point. (To be clear, pedantry in the sense that less can be (usually?) substituted for fewer but not the other way around.)
cbsmith 3y ago
I read that as, "we've already committed atrocities with more, why wouldn't we do the same with less"? ;-)
- toast0 3y ago
  The world would be a better place if we committed fewer atrocities with less ;)
retrac 3y ago
The underlying distinction is about mass versus countable nouns. You can't refer to a sheet of paper as "a paper" (that refers to something else - a completed document). And you can't call a piece of furniture "a furniture", nor can you ask for "a scissors". They are mass nouns, inherently plural, referring to an abstract, indefinite amount of something. (Or in English, something coming in pairs, like scissors.) To refer to a specific instance, you need to use a determiner like "a piece of paper". Or a head of cattle. You can't have two cattles. You have two head of cattle. Cattle come in a herd with an ambiguous number of them Other nouns are count nouns, and can be directly counted; they're definitive. A cat, two cats, four cats. Count nouns go with "fewer". Mass nouns go with "less". Over-educated writers might make a distinction here where "fewer cattle" is visualizing a few individuals, while "less cattle" is visualizing a smaller herd. I do think that's overly pedantic. Very few people make that distinction cleanly. Some languages have no concept of count nouns at all, all nouns are mass nouns. Some languages have no concept of mass nouns, and all nouns are count nouns. Or nearly so. English has and uses both. Some cases are sort of blurry or unclear. "Six rains" = it has rained six times. That's maybe grammatical, but it's very unnatural in English. We do not feel we can count the times it rains, that way. It has to qualify a word that can be counted, like "times" - a pattern so common we get abbreviated counter words like "once" and "twice". Most languages have a touch of both patterns. Even in Chinese, which supposedly has no count nouns, there a few places when you do just count things directly. So, no, it's not necessary. But if your language does make the distinction, it's very common for agreement patterns to show up based around that distinction. Akin to how French adjectives agree with their noun in number and gender.
- WD40forRust34 3y ago
  [flagged]
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > Even in Chinese, which supposedly has no count nouns, there a few places when you do just count things directly. Are those things nouns? Days, for example, must be counted directly, except that the grammar is very clear that 天 is not a noun at all. 月 can be used with or without a measure word, but the obvious analysis would be that it is a noun if used with a measure word and not if counted directly, much like 人. (Preemptive counterargument: is "right" a noun or an adjective?)
gumby 3y ago
In my head the opposite of fewer (“more”) and the opposite of less (“more”) feel like different words that happen to be homonyms. I haven’t looked it up but this is unlikely to have been the etymological history — if there ever even were two different words at all, one likely crowded the other out. But anyway, that’s how my brain works.

by dduugg 3y ago

cantSpellSober 3y ago

Does "The tank is too full, fill it with fewer water next time" sound correct to you? "Fewer" typically refers to countables, "10 items or fewer." "Less" is used for things that don't have a plural form or are not countable, "there's less water in the pool this morning."

etothepii 3y ago
The opposite of few maybe many, but many is not the opposite of fewer as the parent asks. Consider There are fewer people on the West Coast. There are many people on the East Coast. "Many," is not a comparator.
- cantSpellSober 3y ago
  Fair enough, "additional" is an opposite of "fewer." I'll concede "more" is also. > The opposite of few maybe many "Maybe" is an adverb. Perhaps you meant "may be?" :)
  - mc32 3y ago
    Morether. Like further but with more.
    - teddyh 3y ago
      Moreover.

ghaff 3y ago

Less instead of fewer sort of bugs me. But I've even seen less used in The Economist when I would have thought fewer was more correct so I think the answer is it's pedantry at this point. (To be clear, pedantry in the sense that less can be (usually?) substituted for fewer but not the other way around.)

cbsmith 3y ago

I read that as, "we've already committed atrocities with more, why wouldn't we do the same with less"? ;-)

toast0 3y ago
The world would be a better place if we committed fewer atrocities with less ;)

retrac 3y ago

The underlying distinction is about mass versus countable nouns. You can't refer to a sheet of paper as "a paper" (that refers to something else - a completed document). And you can't call a piece of furniture "a furniture", nor can you ask for "a scissors". They are mass nouns, inherently plural, referring to an abstract, indefinite amount of something. (Or in English, something coming in pairs, like scissors.) To refer to a specific instance, you need to use a determiner like "a piece of paper". Or a head of cattle. You can't have two cattles. You have two head of cattle. Cattle come in a herd with an ambiguous number of them Other nouns are count nouns, and can be directly counted; they're definitive. A cat, two cats, four cats. Count nouns go with "fewer". Mass nouns go with "less". Over-educated writers might make a distinction here where "fewer cattle" is visualizing a few individuals, while "less cattle" is visualizing a smaller herd. I do think that's overly pedantic. Very few people make that distinction cleanly. Some languages have no concept of count nouns at all, all nouns are mass nouns. Some languages have no concept of mass nouns, and all nouns are count nouns. Or nearly so. English has and uses both. Some cases are sort of blurry or unclear. "Six rains" = it has rained six times. That's maybe grammatical, but it's very unnatural in English. We do not feel we can count the times it rains, that way. It has to qualify a word that can be counted, like "times" - a pattern so common we get abbreviated counter words like "once" and "twice". Most languages have a touch of both patterns. Even in Chinese, which supposedly has no count nouns, there a few places when you do just count things directly. So, no, it's not necessary. But if your language does make the distinction, it's very common for agreement patterns to show up based around that distinction. Akin to how French adjectives agree with their noun in number and gender.

WD40forRust34 3y ago
[flagged]
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> Even in Chinese, which supposedly has no count nouns, there a few places when you do just count things directly. Are those things nouns? Days, for example, must be counted directly, except that the grammar is very clear that 天 is not a noun at all. 月 can be used with or without a measure word, but the obvious analysis would be that it is a noun if used with a measure word and not if counted directly, much like 人. (Preemptive counterargument: is "right" a noun or an adjective?)

gumby 3y ago

In my head the opposite of fewer (“more”) and the opposite of less (“more”) feel like different words that happen to be homonyms. I haven’t looked it up but this is unlikely to have been the etymological history — if there ever even were two different words at all, one likely crowded the other out. But anyway, that’s how my brain works.