| While I'm sure the grammarians at Capital Community College in Hartford, CT are well-educated and well-meaning, their explanation of the differences in usage between fewer and less is incomplete enough to lead some individuals to make errors of usage.
The examples given to demonstrate the use of less in situations involving countable quantities are misleading, and in some cases, wrong.
When stating that it is "less than twenty miles to Dallas", we mean that the the distance to Dallas is short of twenty miles by a variable distance, of any measure, as opposed to "fewer than twenty miles", which would mean a specific whole number of miles that is less than twenty, say eighteen or three, but not 19.62.
The same reasoning is true for someone who is "less than six feet tall". If you said he was "fewer than six feet tall", he would be assumed to be , maybe, five feet tall, or possibly four or three feet tall, but not five feet, seven inches.
The rest of the examples follow this same pattern, except for "Your essay should be a thousand words or less". Since an essay should consist of whole words, and can be assumed not to be, say, eight hundred forty-seven and two-thirds words long, the proper phrase should be "Your essay should be fewer than a thousand words".
The guiding principle in whether to use fewer or less is simply this:
If the quantity by which one is proposing to reduce the stated quantity counted using the same units (miles, feet, etc.), use fewer. If the reduction quantity can be counted using different units (inches vs. feet, etc.), or can't be counted at all (less energy), then use less.
That being said, I must retire to my sleep in shame, as I was unable to find the spelling error.
:D |
