Today's Grammar Lesson

[tealin]

I 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.

Comments

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

On the other hand (and speaking as someone who's worked in marketing) "one less" is a well-known colloquialism. It's actually a very odd one because usually whatever is "one less" is targeted negatively; "one less bell to answer" and "one less thing to worry about". So I can see why they use it, because it's a familiar saying and familiar things are comfortable to people; on the other hand the strange implication is that women are something we WANT to have one less of.

Which is the opposite point of the whole ad.