Split Thread Grammar: few v less

(About to leave but..)

My understanding is that it's about measures verses quanties of distinct items.


A kilo of apples is less than two kilos of apples.
Four apples are fewer than eight apples.
 
Darat said:
Yep - which is the point. There is no authority that dictates what is proper English or not - we are not the French - English is defined by how it is used not by arbitary rules.
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Which is actually true of all languages, even French and Icelandic (even though they try to dictate); the rules of any language are descriptive, not prescriptive - those who use a language make the rules, and they also change the rules. We may recommend certain usages, but those who speak the language in question are the final arbiters.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
(About to leave but..)

My understanding is that it's about measures verses quanties of distinct items.


A kilo of apples is less than two kilos of apples.
Four apples are fewer than eight apples.
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That's my understanding. Part of the problem, I think, is that the opposite of either of those options is usually "more." It's a little like the problem with "bad" and "badly," when the opposite of both can be "well."

It's true, as Darat says, that English does not have a hard and fast academic set of rules, and is governed by usage, but usage isn't nothing. We still have conventions, the violation of which can blur understanding, impede style, or hint at poor education. Eventually, no doubt, as usage changes, we'll have to give things up, and "less" and "fewer" are on the ropes, especially because, although there is a difference, it has little effect on understanding, unlike some battles pretty much lost, such as the true meaning of "literally" and "disinterested," whose demise has actually left a hole where no other word alone quite conveys what they once did.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
Numbers when used as nouns are uncountable nouns, hence why you use less than and why they are spoken of in the third person singular.
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ω is countable, while 2ω is uncountable.

I used "is" for both, because I am writing with mathematical precision. ω is a particular ordinal/cardinal, hence singular. 2ω is also a particular ordinal/cardinal, hence singular. But ω is a countable ordinal/cardinal, while 2ω is not.

But if an English major were to say 2ω are uncountable, that would surprise me not because of the plural "are", but because very few English majors know the difference between countable and uncountable, nor do many of them know which ordinals (or cardinals) are countable and which aren't. We have seen that already within this thread. (I am not implying that all who believe there are uncountably many integers or rational numbers between 3 and 4 are English majors. Some of them might even hold a doctorate in a field other than mathematics.)

The distinction between singular and plural has been galloping out the barn door for quite a while: "the media is", "the data shows", et cetera. Or the use of "they" when referring to a singular person.

ETA: Marshall McLuhan wrote "The medium is the message." So far as I know, he never said "The media are the message", but that would also be grammatically correct. (Factually, it would probably be as correct as what I know he wrote, but I guess the factual correctness of what he wrote is arguable.) If someone were to say "The media is the message" (and I have heard that said), the speaker might be factually correct but not grammatically correct.

The interesting question here is whether the grammar of the message is more important than whatever fact might be conveyed by the message. McLuhan was saying the grammar and presentation are more important than the message itself. I'm not saying he was wrong; I am sad to say I think he was right. It's just that I kinda like to hold onto the idea that a message's meaning can be more important than its grammar.
 
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Well this was an unexpected spinoff. I do feel it should be noted that I am an exceptional idiot when it comes to both math and grammar. I had to take entrance classes for both just to get into tech school lol, and they HAD to accept me. I don't know that I could properly tell people the difference between nouns, adverbs, etc.

Interesting thread though, I learned a thing or two for sure.
 
bruto said:
That's my understanding. Part of the problem, I think, is that the opposite of either of those options is usually "more." It's a little like the problem with "bad" and "badly," when the opposite of both can be "well."

It's true, as Darat says, that English does not have a hard and fast academic set of rules, and is governed by usage, but usage isn't nothing. We still have conventions, the violation of which can blur understanding, impede style, or hint at poor education. Eventually, no doubt, as usage changes, we'll have to give things up, and "less" and "fewer" are on the ropes, especially because, although there is a difference, it has little effect on understanding, unlike some battles pretty much lost, such as the true meaning of "literally" and "disinterested," whose demise has actually left a hole where no other word alone quite conveys what they once did.
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I was pondering this on my dog walks and I came to the conclusion that the main times that the distinction might be significant is when dealing with items that come in different sizes, particularly if there the term for the unit and the quantity is similar or the same. As an admittedly contrived example, say I was after a bargin from a wine dealer so I'm letting them use a bit of discretion, if I say I need no fewer than ten bottles of wine and they send me two six bottle wine boxes or twenty half bottles then they haven't supplied what I ask whereas if I've asked for no less than ten bottles of wine they arguably have. I was specifically thinking of the difference of wanting to give them as gifts where the units are important, or a party where the volume is.
 
Heh, a thread on grammar is going to run and run. Here's my take. IMV it's OK for a shop to display a sign, 'Less Than Eight Items' at a fast check-out till. Labels and signs are different from grammatical sentences. Hence my view that it is perfectly fine and logical for grocers to throw in an apostrophe after the product declaration to pluralise it. For example, 'APPLE'S' or 'POTATO'S'. Even PRIVATE EYE had a long-running feud as to whether 'Pseuds Corner' should have a possessive apostrophe (of course not!). Likewise, blazing rows amongst Hyacinth Bucket-style snobs as to whether it should be 'due to' or 'owing to'. I would say that in a proper grammatical sentence, one would write 'fewer than [X]' not 'less than [X]', or 'X fewer'. It is useful, in addition, to know the difference between a plural noun and a singular one, but not crucial, as everyone says 'data' or media' as a singular noun these days, or 'couple', team' pair' 'group' which are singular but often expressed as a plural. For example, 'the team were delighted to...'. I should hasten to add that in Finnish, 'less than' and 'fewer than' are both expressed in exactly the same way. There is no differentiation, although I dare say 'professional mathematicians' can find a way around it to express a difference. Even referring to a dictionary is likely to be futile in this type of debate. Just my tuppence worth.
 
plague311 said:
Well this was an unexpected spinoff. I do feel it should be noted that I am an exceptional idiot when it comes to both math and grammar. I had to take entrance classes for both just to get into tech school lol, and they HAD to accept me. I don't know that I could properly tell people the difference between nouns, adverbs, etc.

Interesting thread though, I learned a thing or two for sure.
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I'm sure many readers of this thread will not be at all surprised to learn I failed a written test that, if passed, would have allowed me to skip a certain college's remedial course in English composition.

It was a pretty crummy college, so I won't identify the college. I failed the test because my one-page essay used three paragraphs instead of four, or maybe it was four instead of three. What I learned from my failure is that the English department of that college believed a one-page essay must consist of the politically correct number of paragraphs.

I was unable to complete that remedial course. I have, in fact, never completed any college-level course in English or English composition.

There was a reason for that. Now that this thread has been relocated to "History, Literature, and the Arts", I think I should be permitted to amuse you by telling you that reason.

The remedial course was taught by undergraduate English majors acting as individual tutors. My tutor became increasingly upset with me because I often used English words she didn't know. A third of the way through the semester, the English prof in charge of the course gave us a writing assignment that began by quoting Walt Whitman's Song of Myself:

What I assume you shall assume.​

He quoted that line as though Whitman were acting as an authoritarian. The rest of the assignment was phrased as though the English prof was the authoritarian.

Completely fed up with that course, that English prof, and the college itself, I began my essay by quoting the opening lines of Whitman's poem:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
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The rest of my essay explained, in exquisite detail, what I thought of an English professor who would pretend Whitman was the sort of illiterate authoritarian who would approve of how that remedial course was being taught.

When I next saw my tutor, she was grinning from ear to ear. She said the prof wanted to see me in person. (To that point in the course, I had not had a single glimpse of that professor.) She obviously thought I was in big trouble. I figured she was right, but I didn't care; within days of enrolling at that crummy college, I had announced my intention to transfer to the University of Texas.

When I saw the professor, his first words were "How about we give you an A and forget the whole thing?" I didn't accept that. I directed his attention to four written policies of that department and college that said, based upon my various test scores (including an Advanced Placement test in English), I should have been given advanced placement credit for English courses beyond those required for graduation.

Bottom line: I ended up with advanced placement credit for four semesters of English, and never had to complete any English courses during my college years.

I hope the personal history related above will help to explain my combative attitude toward grammar nazis, especially those who promote rigid rules for informal references to numbers that conflict with the precise language mathematicians use when discussing those numbers.
 
Besides the obvious, it doesn't matter because its easily understood what you mean regardless of whether you are using fewer or less, my understanding is that the distinction is of relatively recent invention anyway.

Just don't say things like 2x less or 2x fewer. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Half I guess.
 
ahhell said:
Besides the obvious, it doesn't matter because its easily understood what you mean regardless of whether you are using fewer or less, my understanding is that the distinction is of relatively recent invention anyway.

Just don't say things like 2x less or 2x fewer. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Half I guess.
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Advertisers would be lost if they couldn't use such terminology.
 
W.D.Clinger said:
I failed the test because my one-page essay used three paragraphs instead of four, or maybe it was four instead of three. What I learned from my failure is that the English department of that college believed a one-page essay must consist of the politically correct number of paragraphs.
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Were your paragraphs fewer, or less, than what they required? You seem to assume the former, clearly: but are you sure?

eta: Heh, no, not an English major! Which is why I'm not 100% sure if it necessarily has to be lesser, or if less will do.
 
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I guess I'm of two minds here, being an old over-educated curmudgeon no doubt. Of course you can use any number of expressions and end up being understood, and I applaud the fact that people for whom English is a foreign language can manage to speak it at all and get their meaning across. You can speak dialect, broken English, even pidgin, and be understood, and understanding is paramount. But I think you're doing nobody, including yourself, a favor by doing it when you don't need to. In a way, the fact that we're even engaged in this discussion is indicative, because we are essentially arguing about whether the distinction is important, but in so doing we must acknowledge that the distinction exists. To take others to task for saying things "wrong" is one thing, but to do it yourself when you know the difference is another: a statement that the difference itself should not be recognized.
 
Chanakya said:
Were your paragraphs fewer, or less, than what they required? You seem to assume the former, clearly: but are you sure?

eta: Heh, no, not an English major! Which is why I'm not 100% sure if it necessarily has to be lesser, or if less will do.
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Of course there are going to be ambiguous situations from time to time, but I would say if the number of paragraphs is at issue, then your paragraphs are fewer than required. If you fudged the required number by making all your paragraphs one sentence long, then regardless of how many you ended up with, then having violated what a paragraph should be, they're less.
 
bruto said:
Of course there are going to be ambiguous situations from time to time, but I would say if the number of paragraphs is at issue, then your paragraphs are fewer than required.
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Yep. I was --- jokingly! --- asking him whether he was right in assuming that was the case, and not in fact the quality of what he wrote.
 
Chanakya said:
Yep. I was --- jokingly! --- asking him whether he was right in assuming that was the case, and not in fact the quality of what he wrote.
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I was told, explicitly, that the one-page essay I wrote for my failed attempt to place out of remedial English was a failed attempt because it had the wrong number of paragraphs. It wasn't that my paragraphs were too short or too long, it was that the graders had been instructed to fail any essay that had the wrong number of paragraphs.

I don't remember whether 3 was the correct number of paragraphs but I wrote 4, or 4 was the correct number and I wrote 3. They didn't tell us beforehand how many paragraphs we were to write. They just told us to write a one-page essay, and it turned out to be a test of whether we were able to guess how many paragraphs the graders had been told should go into a one-page essay.

In short, I don't know whether I wrote fewer paragraphs than they wanted, or what they wanted was less than what I wrote.
 
W.D.Clinger said:
I was told, explicitly, that the one-page essay I wrote for my failed attempt to place out of remedial English was a failed attempt because it had the wrong number of paragraphs. It wasn't that my paragraphs were too short or too long, it was that the graders had been instructed to fail any essay that had the wrong number of paragraphs.

I don't remember whether 3 was the correct number of paragraphs but I wrote 4, or 4 was the correct number and I wrote 3. They didn't tell us beforehand how many paragraphs we were to write. They just told us to write a one-page essay, and it turned out to be a test of whether we were able to guess how many paragraphs the graders had been told should go into a one-page essay.

In short, I don't know whether I wrote fewer paragraphs than they wanted, or what they wanted was less than what I wrote.
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Sure. ...Not to make a big deal of this, I only meant this as a joke, or at least an attempt at one: but this does show, doesn't it, that the fewer-lesser distinction can indeed be meaningful. You're saying that the paragraphs you wrote in the test were probably fewer (in number) than needed, and not less or lesser (in quality of content) than what they expected. Doing away with that distinction calls for more words to convey the same meaning, in some cases at any rate.
 
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