What’s wrong with these sentences?
She has less books than I do.
I want to increase the amount of guitars I have.
Are these ok?
I have fewer money than I used to have.
What number of sugar should I put in your coffee?
I think very few people would use these second sentences but I hear variations of the first two all the time. Both sets are equally wrong. The correct versions are:
She has fewer books than I do.
I want to increase the number of guitars I have.
and
I have less money than I used to have.
What amount of sugar should I put in your coffee?
Use fewer and number when you are thinking of whole number quantities: “I have less wheat if I have fewer bushels.” That is, if you think of one, two, three, etc. units of the substance or object, then fewer and number should be used. Use less and amount if you are not counting the individual units.
There are many common grammatical errors that are in common use in the English language, but these are, in my opinion, especially egregious. When a speaker gets these wrong, it’s not uncommon to see audience members slightly rolling their eyes or glancing around to see if others caught the mistake.
Even though we speak of “less than” and “greater than” in mathematics, we’re talking about English here. Though you really should know the difference in these forms, life isn’t all that bad because more is general purpose: “You get more caffeine from more cups of coffee.”
Does anyone know why the English language is asymmetrical in this regard?
‘Books’ or ‘guitars’ are objects which can be counted…the words are plural nouns. While ‘money’ and ’sugar’ are equally nouns they are singular nouns requiring different modifiers vis amount — not how ‘many’ but now ‘much’.
How many of [those plural things]…How much of [that singular thing].
What a strange language we have. I think of “less” as the comparative form of “little” as in little/less/least. But notice how the meaning of “little” changes according to the noun that follows, as in:
1) Jane has little money/time/sugar.
2) Jane has little fingers/spoons/dogs.
Also, ever notice that supermarkets persist in having a “10 items or less” express line rather than “10 items or fewer”?
I have contact with various foreign nationals (mostly Japanese), but when I’m asked a question like this, I usually say “some guy from a few hundred years ago set that rule.” There are so many questions that people have that only seem to be answered in an ESL/EFL book…
Whatever you do, don’t listen to cable news — those folks just make up words all the time. After changing “impacted” to a verb, they’re now into using “metric” to stand for anything one might measure. And sports broadcasters, most of whom are former athletes or mere communications majors from college, are the worst. I’m not sure they’ve ever even seen or heard the word “fewer.”
It’s one thing to be a reader, it’s quite another to listen to what one reads.
Thank you Bob!!
Its nice to see someone else recognising such grammatical mistakes. It happens all the time in my office, yet suggesting the correction usually labels me a “grammer nazi” or pedant. For me, its just sloppy use of the English language.
Regards.