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

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

You know what's weird, I specifically remember having been taught in English class for several years in a row that one hyphenates the 's' that pluralizes an acronym. Then suddenly this wasn't cool anymore, or perhaps had never been cool and our teachers had been misleading us. I am more forgiving of such errors because of my own personal history of confusion, but apostrophizing non-acronym plurals still drives me bonkers.

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

I just do the acronym (is it really an acronym if it doesn't make a word?) in capitals, then add the S in lower case.