Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News tonight:
“. . . less than [?] jobs added, far fewer than expected . . .”I wasn’t fast enough to get the number (200,000?), but you get the idea. I can imagine a writer wondering, “Should it be less than? Fewer than? I know: I’ll try both!”
But there’s nothing wrong with repeating fewer here.
comments: 4
I've always tried to follow the rule that fewer is for count nouns and less is for mass nouns. But then, there's this rule, which I've never heard of ... https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/opinion/tn-dpt-me-1003-casagrande-20131001-story.html
Garner’s Modern English Usage has great discussions of these words. Casagrande is more or less following Garner when she describes the “strictest” guidelines. One point from Garner: “fewer people” is seven times more common in books than “less people.” He also notes that “one fewer” is unidiomatic (his example, from the Dionne Warwick hit: “one less bell to answer.”
Sometimes “less” makes sense, when a count noun names a whole: “I finished the job in less than six weeks.” “It cost less than five dollars.”
In the sentence Casagrande discusses, I’d go for “fewer than 600.” I think the number implies “people.” I think Garner has the better grasp of things here.
The "less-fewer" discussion was a common theme/joke/motif in Game of Thrones. https://www.ign.com/articles/2017/08/07/game-of-thrones-davoss-grammar-fix-is-the-best-recurring-joke
I had no idea — that’s great.
In Infinite Jest, the Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts campaign to change “10 Items or Less” signs in supermarkets.
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