Every time I go to the store and read the "Ten Items or Less" billboard I grit my teeth. One time -- once -- I actually saw the sign written correctly, "Ten Items or Fewer," and congratulated the cashier. She had no idea what I was talking about.
Grammar questions quickly get me into deep weeds, but this is one point on which I'm rock-solid. It is this:
Less -- non-delineated category
Fewer -- delineated category
I say that I have LESS free time than I used to, but I have FEWER minutes to spend as I please. I have LESS sand to move, but FEWER shovelsful of sand to lift.
A related concept is Further and Farther.
Further -- nonmeasurable distance
Farther -- measureable distance
I read FURTHER about the event as I read FARTHER down the page. I went FURTHER into my thoughts as I walked FARTHER down the road.
When I was in middle school I was a voracious reader, a book a day, but grammar seemed irrelevant to me. When I started having my work professionally edited I began to appreciate how important are these picky little points. Yes, grammar matters, if for no other reason than that it augments the precision of our communication.
I knew that about less/fewer, although I'd never thought about it in regards to express lanes :). And I didn't realize that about further/farther, so now I feel like I need to double-check that in everything I've written...
ReplyDeleteMy biggest pet peeve is, "I could care less." Um, wrong. You mean, "I couldn't care less." If you can care less, then you do care some, which is not what you are trying to say at all.
Kat, ohh, you're so right!
ReplyDeleteHow about this one: People talk about getting "perks" in their job. No, it's "perquisites," or "perqs." Or how about in a novel where the heroine "pours" over the pages of a text. Love the imagery of that one. How about "pores?"
These are fun. Thanks Kat!