Today's Grammar Lesson
Feb. 6th, 2008 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinI heard the Gardasil commercial for the first time today. You know, the one with all the females saying 'I want to be one less!' over and over and then all yelling it at the end?
IT'S ONE FEWER! ONE FEWER!! Aaargh!
Less/Fewer is the same rule as many/much. When do you say 'how many' and when 'how much'? If you can count it, you say many – 'How many eggs?' If you can't count it, it's much – 'How much water?' You don't say 'how many water' or 'how much eggs' because you know that sounds dumb. But people swap 'less' and 'fewer' at random, even though they follow the same rule. If you can count them, it's fewer: 'I need fewer problems' – and if you can't, it's less: 'More clouds mean less sunlight.'
Is this so hard? Please tell me why this is so hard. And you can't just blame it on the '15 items or less' checkout aisle at the grocery store, that's not good enough.
IT'S ONE FEWER! ONE FEWER!! Aaargh!
Less/Fewer is the same rule as many/much. When do you say 'how many' and when 'how much'? If you can count it, you say many – 'How many eggs?' If you can't count it, it's much – 'How much water?' You don't say 'how many water' or 'how much eggs' because you know that sounds dumb. But people swap 'less' and 'fewer' at random, even though they follow the same rule. If you can count them, it's fewer: 'I need fewer problems' – and if you can't, it's less: 'More clouds mean less sunlight.'
Is this so hard? Please tell me why this is so hard. And you can't just blame it on the '15 items or less' checkout aisle at the grocery store, that's not good enough.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-07 09:20 am (UTC)However when I do it to my husband he tends to point me here:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004005.html
(I think that's the right article - it's a very interesting site)
...and say "ner nerr, it's more complicated than that so you can't say if I'm right or wrong anyway", and frankly I find myself floundering slightly amongst all the big words and tend to stop arguing at that point. The bastard.