Showing posts with label comparatives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comparatives. Show all posts

Monday, May 5, 2014

Dealing with the age-old controversy over the usage of “fewer” and “less”

Question by jhinx22, Forum member (May 2, 2014):

People often don’t know when to use “fewer” and when to use “less” in a sentence. “Fewer” is used when referring to people or things in plural as in this sentence: “Fewer students are opting to study science-related subjects. “Less,” on the other hand, is used when referring to something that can’t be counted, as in this example: “People want to spend less time in traffic jams.”

I was confused when I came across this example in your forum: “‘Why are there less women CEOs?’ asks the professor.”

Shouldn’t it be “fewer” instead?

My reply to jhinx22:

You hit the nail right on the head, so to speak, when you say that people often don’t know when to use “fewer” and when to use “less.” The fact is that the choice between these two comparatives has been steeped in controversy for over two centuries now, and it’s a controversy that shows no sign of abating. The general rule is, of course, to use “less” if we are talking comparatively about an amount of something that can’t be counted, as the noun “time” in the example you gave, “People want to spend less time in traffic jams”; and to use “fewer” if we are talking comparatively about a number of people or things that are countable, as the noun “students” in your other example, “Fewer students are opting to study science-related subjects.”

In actual usage, though, we soon discover that this general rule doesn’t always work—or at least not work very nicely—for quite a few things. While “money” is obviously countable, for instance, we don’t say “I have fewer than five-hundred pesos in my savings account” but say “I have less than than five-hundred pesos in my savings account” instead. And while the noun “minute” is evidently countable as a unit of time, I’d say “Less than half of the 180 minutes of that atrocious stage play was worth watching” and definitely not “Fewer than half of the 180 minutes of that atrocious stage play was worth watching.”

There are obviously other grammatical or semantic forces at work when we make the choice between “fewer” and “less” in our written or spoken English. It is therefore perfectly understandable that you got confused when you came across this construction in the Forum: “‘Why are there less women CEOs?’ asks the professor.” Shouldn’t it be “fewer” instead?

That questionable “less”-using sentence was actually a news headline on the web that was brought to my attention by a Forum member, journalism student Jhumur Dasgupta, way back in December 2011. He found that headline odd from a structural standpoint, not because it used “less” instead of “fewer,” and he asked me if there was a better way to construct that headline (“The proper way to construct a question in a news headline”). I suggested some structural variations, but that headline’s usage of “less” not having been questioned, I took its wording at face value when I analyzed it for Jhumur.

Now that you’ve brought up that sentence for discussion, though, I think it’s time to seize the bull by its horns and answer your question: Shouldn’t it use “fewer” instead of “less”? Shouldn’t it be corrected to read as follows?

“‘Why are there fewer women CEOs?’ asks the professor.”

For sure the sentence above is more grammatically airtight than “‘Why are there less women CEOs?’ asks the professor,” but I think only in the context of a comparison against a well-known, numerically established number of women CEOs in, say, a specific industry within a certain geographic location. For instance, assuming that it has been definitely established that there are 8,000 male CEOs in Metro Manila’s telecommunications industry against only 500 women CEOs in that local universe of CEOs, then given that level of certainty, the use of the comparative “fewer” would be unquestionable and that statement should definitely read as follows: “‘Why are there fewer women CEOs?’ asks the professor.”

I would think though that when comparing unknown, not well-established, or merely assumed or conjectural quantities, “less” might just be preferable to “fewer” and better-sounding at that. Take this hypothetical example: “In that progressive island-nation in which you imagine that female executives outnumber male executives by a ratio of 100:15, why would there be less women CEOs?” (I know that grammar prescriptivists would accept that construction only if the phrase “than male CEOs” is added to the tail end of that sentence, but no matter.) I’m not saying, though, that “fewer” is wrong in that sentence, only that “less” becomes an irresistible if not an unquestionably viable usage as well. Indeed, the shade of difference between “fewer” and “less” becomes marginal in such situations, and I personally don’t think I’d be so embarrassed as to lose sleep if somebody caught me instinctively using “less” for that comparative.

MORE READINGS IN THE FORUM ABOUT “FEWER” VS. “LESS”:
Trouble in using “less” or “fewer”
“Ten items or less”

ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB:
OxfordWords Blog on “Less” and “Fewer”
New York Times ”After Deadline” Blog on “Less” and “Fewer”

Sunday, September 11, 2011

The construction of comparative sentences involving possessives

In English, it’s quite a simple thing to compare two entities directly, as in “Eve was perhaps older than Adam by a few days,” but the grammar gets somewhat more complicated when what’s to be compared is an attribute, a possession, or a part of those entities. Indeed, how do we correctly construct a sentence comparing the heights of the Great Pyramid of Giza and of the Eiffel Tower in Paris? We can’t say “The height of the Eiffel Tower is 77.5 meters greater than the Great Pyramid of Giza”—not because the given figure is wrong but because the grammar of the comparative isn’t right. So then, how do we construct the comparison correctly?

In my essay below that came out in my English-usage column in The Manila Times in October of 2010, I explained to a Forum member precisely how to make such a comparative sentence grammatically aboveboard in every respect. (September 11, 2011)

Differentiating the use of “than” and “than that of” 

In making comparisons, when should “than that of” be used instead of “than”?

I was asked this question several days ago by a student-member of Jose Carillo’s English Forum whose username is Forces20. She said she wanted to understand the logic behind the choice between the two comparative forms.

She wrote: “Let’s consider this sentence as an example: ‘As a teacher, his salary is even less than that of a driver.’ Why shouldn’t this sentence be written instead as ‘As a teacher, his salary is even less than a driver’?

“Also this sentence: ‘The new library is undoubtedly well-stocked and functional but no one can say that its atmosphere is like the old one.’ Why should it be revised to this: ‘The new library is undoubtedly well-stocked and functional but no one can say that its atmosphere is like that of the old one’?”

I explained to Forces20 that the fundamental difference between the comparatives “than” and “than that of” is in the nature of the elements being compared. We use “than” when we compare two objects or things directly with each other, as in “Your laptop is more powerful than my laptop” or, more succinctly, “Your laptop is more powerful than mine.”

On the other hand, we use “than that of” when we compare not the two objects or things themselves but an attribute, possession, or part of theirs, as in “The processor of your laptop is more powerful than that of mine.” This particular comparative construction is, of course, an elliptical, more succinct version of this sentence: “The processor of your laptop is more powerful than the processor of your laptop.” The pointing pronoun “that” replaces the name of the thing whose attribute, possession, or part is being compared with that of the other, and the pronoun “mine” replaces the name of the other thing involved in the comparison.

If we simply use “than” instead of “than that of” when comparing the attribute, possession, or part of the elements being compared, a semantic problem or ambiguity in meaning might result, as in this sentence: “The processor of your laptop is more powerful than mine.” Here, it’s not clear if the pronoun “mine” refers to the processor of the other person’s laptop or to the laptop itself. The form “than that of” clarifies that ambiguity: “The processor of your laptop is more powerful than that of mine.”

Now, in the examples Forces20 presented, the sentence “As a teacher, his salary is even less than a driver” is grammatically flawed because it is illogically comparing the teacher’s salary to the driver, not to the driver’s salary. The comparative form “less than that of” fixes the problem: “As a teacher, his salary is even less than that of a driver.”

The other sentence she presented, “The new library is undoubtedly well-stocked and functional but no one can say that its atmosphere is like the old one,” has the same problem. It wrongly compares the atmosphere of the new library with the old library itself, when the real comparison should be between their respective atmospheres. The use of the comparative form “like that of” corrects and clarifies that comparison: “The new library is undoubtedly well-stocked and functional but no one can say that its atmosphere is like that of the old one.”

But the form “than that of” may not be necessary in some comparative constructions involving possessives. Take a look at these two examples: “Albert’s grade in science is higher than Bert’s.” Its version that uses “than that of” for the comparison is also correct but less straightforward: “Albert’s grade in science is higher than that of Bert.” On the other hand, this sentence, “Our basketball team’s record is more impressive than our competitor’s,” is more concise and better-sounding than “Our basketball team’s record is more impressive than that of our competitor.” (October 23, 2010)
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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, October 23, 2010 © 2010 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

P.S. For those who’d like to know precisely how I got the figure “77.5 meters,” here’s the bit of arithmetic that I did: The Eiffel Tower is 324 meters high, and the Great Pyramid of Giza is 146.5 meters high, so the former is higher than the latter by 324 meters minus 146.5 meters = 77.5 meters. Following the grammar prescription in the above essay, therefore, the correct and concise sentence construction for that comparative is this: “The height of the Eiffel Tower is 77.5 meters greater than that of the Great Pyramid of Giza.”

Monday, January 17, 2011

Really now, how good are you in handling the comparatives?

How good are you in handling the English comparatives? Perhaps you find it as easy as pie to form the simplest comparatives by adding the suffix “-er” to certain kinds of adjectives or by putting the modifiers “more,” “less,” or “fewer” ahead of other kinds of adjectives, but let me ask you pointblank: Are you as good in handling comparatives for two-clause sentences? And can you say without batting an eyelash that you no longer fumble when faced with the choice between using the comparatives “fewer” and “less”?  

Mastery of the grammar of making comparisons is a very good indicator of one’s English proficiency. To help fortify the capability of English learners in handling them, I therefore did a quick review of the English comparatives in my English-usage column in The Manila Times in May last year. I thought that some of you might need a quick review of the comparatives yourselves, so I decided to post that essay in this week’s edition of the Forum.

Come take a look. (January 15, 2011)    

A quick review of the English comparatives

The urge to size up and compare things is no doubt one of humankind’s strongest instincts, so it’s really no surprise that every language evolves a well-defined grammar for comparatives. In English, of course, the comparative is normally formed in either of two ways: (a) by adding the suffix “-er” to the positive form of an adjective (or adverb), as in “sweeter” for “sweet,” or (b) by putting the modifiers “more,” “less,” or “fewer” ahead of a polysyllabic adjective derived from a foreign language, as in “more lucrative,” “less delicious,” and “fewer candidates.”

Then, to complete the comparative form, the subordinating conjunction “than” is placed between the two elements being compared: “The oranges in this orchard are sweeter than those grown across the river.” “Her business is more [less] lucrative than mine.” “The vacant position attracted fewer applicants than we expected.” Note that in these comparative constructions, the first element is a clause that expresses the difference (as in “The oranges in this orchard are sweeter”), and the second element is introduced by the subordinating conjunction “than” (“than those grown across the river”).

In two-clause sentences, however, the following two-part subordinating conjunctions are used instead of “than”: (a) “as/not as…as,” as in “Our Baguio branch is as [not as] big as our Cebu branch”; (b) “not so/not as…as,” as in “Her second novel is not as [not so] exciting as her first one”; (c) “the same…as,” as in “Her dress that night was the same design as the party host’s”; and (d) “less/more…than,” as in “The trip cost more [less] than he had planned.”

These comparatives are already second nature to most of us, but when it comes to the comparatives “fewer” and “less” in particular, not a few native and nonnative English speakers still fumble in their choice. Indeed, precisely under what circumstances should “fewer” or “less” be used?  

The choice between “fewer” and “less” depends on whether the noun to be modified is countable or noncountable. When something is countable, of course, we can figure out without great difficulty how many of it there are; we then use “number” as an indefinite measure for it, as in “the number of voters” and the “a number of recipes.” In contrast, something is noncountable if it’s in bulk form and counting its constituent units would be insufferably difficult or impossible; we then use “amount” as a measure for it, as in “the amount of sunlight” and “a great amount of labor.”

Now, the word “fewer” is used as a comparative for plural count nouns, or things that use “number” as measure, as in “There are fewer buyers of hats now than last month” and “She found fewer grammatical errors in the latest student essays.” On the other hand, “less” is used as a comparative for singular mass nouns, or things that use “amount” as measure, as in “We consumed less electricity this month than last month” and “Our new supervisor is less strict in attendance than his predecessor.”

Usually, a comparative statement would ping our ears if it wrongly uses “less” for “fewer” or vice versa, as in “Less contractors than anticipated are bidding for the irrigation dam construction” or “Our customers are showing fewer tolerance for the saltiness of our spaghetti.” (Now feel the pleasant autocorrection when “less” is replaced with “fewer” in the first sentence, and “fewer” with “less” in the second: “Fewer contractors than anticipated are bidding for the irrigation dam construction.” “Our customers are showing less tolerance for the saltiness of our spaghetti.”)

Some exceptions, though: When a plural count noun is thought of as an aggregate, “amount” instead of “number” can be used as a measure for it, as in “They’ll supply us with whatever amount of smoked ham we need.” Also, in certain cases, it’s grammatically correct to use a singular mass noun in the plural-count sense, like “cement” in the following sentence: “We need to reduce the number of kilos of cement that we are ordering monthly.” (May 29, 2010)
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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, May29, 2010 © 2010 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.