Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[MereNovice]

Up to ten



so am i allowed 10?

Yes.

[RED-DOG]

A nugget from today's "The Times".

Less or fewer?

Is it "10 items or less" or "10 items or fewer"?

The grammatical question has puzzled Tesco so much that it is changing the wording of signs on checkouts to read "Up to 10 items". Tesco said the solution was suggested by the PEC (Plain English Society).

Unfortunately, they missed the "S" from "items" and the sign read "Up to 10 item"

[MereNovice]

A nugget from today's "The Times".

Less or fewer?

Is it "10 items or less" or "10 items or fewer"?

The grammatical question has puzzled Tesco so much that it is changing the wording of signs on checkouts to read "Up to 10 items". Tesco said the solution was suggested by the PEC (Plain English Society).

I'm in the "fewer" camp, myself.

[WarBwastard]

Fewer thingies, less of a thing.

[AndrewT]

Was asked to review a potential player survey at work, and I'd noticed that some of the questions were phrased in a non neutral way ('Do you think X is good?', rather than the better 'What do you think of X?').

So I sent an email saying that I thought there should be 'less leading questions', thinking the meaning was clear enough.

'How many do you think there should be?' was the reply...

[MereNovice]

Fewer thingies, less of a thing.

That's the commonly held (and right   ) opinion but apparently "Fowler's Modern Usage" disagrees.

[MereNovice]

Was asked to review a potential player survey at work, and I'd noticed that some of the questions were phrased in a non neutral way ('Do you think X is good?', rather than the better 'What do you think of X?').

So I sent an email saying that I thought there should be 'less leading questions', thinking the meaning was clear enough.

'How many do you think there should be?' was the reply...

    

That's why I love our language.

[kinboshi]

Mass nouns take the word 'less', and quantitative nouns take the word 'fewer'.  Which is why the email Andrew received back was incorrect.

You have less pizza, and fewer pizzas.  Something (like a question) can be less leading, and there can be fewer questions (but not the other way round).

Tesco's "10 items or less" was blatantly incorrect.

So is the common use of the word 'factoid'...

[ripple11]

 As we tell our foreign students...........if you can count it.... its fewer. 
                                                       if you can't count it ....its less.   

[Dingdell]

As we tell our foreign students...........if you can count it.... its fewer. 
                                                       if you can't count it ....its less.   

Run that one by me again please?

[kinboshi]

As we tell our foreign students...........if you can count it.... its fewer. 
                                                       if you can't count it ....its less.   

Run that one by me again please?

Soup - you can have less soup in your bowl, not fewer, as you don't count it.

If you're talking cans of soup, you can have fewer cans in your cupboard, not less, as you can count the cans (1 can, toucan, etc.).

[Dingdell]

As we tell our foreign students...........if you can count it.... its fewer. 
                                                       if you can't count it ....its less.   

Run that one by me again please?

Soup - you can have less soup in your bowl, not fewer, as you don't count it.

If you're talking cans of soup, you can have fewer cans in your cupboard, not less, as you can count the cans (1 can, toucan, etc.).

Good explanation thanks. To be pedantic it doesn't work for alphabet soup though? Fewer letters? 

[Bongo]

One of your favourite companies, Google, has been busy and are launching a web browser...

There's a 40 page comic explaining it all here:

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

A rather interesting move I thought.

[AndrewT]

One of your favourite companies, Google, has been busy and are launching a web browser...

There's a 40 page comic explaining it all here:

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

A rather interesting move I thought.

The comic appears to feature RichEO.

[Jon MW]

I like the background detail - my favourite would have to be, 'www.wtf???.com'