If Justin Bieber Doesn’t Know the Difference Between “Less” and “Fewer,” HPV Has Won
Oh, HPV awareness ad…. It’s not hard to use “less” and “fewer” correctly. Here you go:
If you can count them, you’ve got “fewer.”If you can’t count it, you’ve got “less.”
For instance:
I have fewer leprosy symptoms than you do; consequently, I have less discomfort than you do.
I not only have less milk in my glass than I did a minute ago, but I also have fewer cartons of milk in my refrigerator than I did before the hockey team arrived.
Express Lane: 10 Items or Fewer. (No, really. It should be “fewer.” Every time. Fewer).
You know who, besides the HPV prevention lobby, doesn’t know the difference between “less” and “fewer”? Justin Bieber.
His song title “One Less Lonely Girl” is ambiguous — if it were about one girl who were made, by the ministrations of Mr. Bieber, to feel less lonely, than the title would be correct (although some grammatical authorities might recommend a hyphen to make the meaning clear: One Less-Lonely Girl).
However, I listened to this song. After suffering an acne outbreak, I discovered that Mr. Bieber really meant “fewer”; as evidence, he says, “I’ll take her and leave the world with one less lonely girl.”
In sum, I now have less respect for whoever is claiming to homeschool Justin Bieber; I hope this advice will result in fewer Justin Bieber fans. That itself should result in fewer cases of HPV.
By Jennifer Dziura
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Jennifer Dziura (jenniferdziura.com) is a quizmistress, spelling bee host, and professional nerd who recently premiered a one-woman show about punctuation.
I’m really glad this site has a keyword for “the vagaries of grammar.” Also, this was hilarious and long overdue! “Mr. Bieber”!
Shouldn’t it be “effected” instead of “affected”?
actually affected is correct…they didn’t fuck up there.
Music is a form of poetry. Normal rules of grammar do not apply in poetry.
Justin didn’t write this song. Usher and Ezekiel Lewis did – I suspect neither were home schooled.
Sorry, Miss Grammatical Expert,
Although you know one part of the less/fewer rule, you don’t know it all. Yes, there’s a countability factor, which works in most cases. But there’s a a very simple reality: “less” is singular and “fewer” is plural.
There is one less chair in the room, NOT: There is one fewer chair in the room. Did you eat one fewer egg this morning? I think not. There are two fewer chairs, though, and three fewer eggs.
JB’s lyrics and the poster are grammatically correct. Sorry.
All the huffin’ and puffin’ about homeschooling – very sad! Get your facts straight.
AN ENGLISH TEACHER
Um, Joanne, that’s just not true. It’s “one fewer chair.” If there’s one of something, you can count it.
There are some exceptions in the case of things you can count, but the counting is a bit incidental. For instance, “I have less than $200.” You can count dollars (and you WOULD say “I have fewer than three dollar bills”), but in the $200 example, you could have fractions of a dollar — the counting is incidental. But this doesn’t apply to your egg example.
Beg to differ. Money amounts are considered singular ($200 is a lot of money), as are distances (3 miles is too far), and time (two hours is the time limit).
Check your singular/plural rules.
And it’s one less chair. Check less/fewer rules – they’re readily available on-line.
Tyla is correct Joanne. While dollars is countable and you use “fewer”, you would use less when using 200 dollars. Ex I have less than 200 dollars, not fewer. And she is correct with the chair example. There are “fewer” chairs, not “less”.
I know this because I am studying the GMAT and this is a common mistake people make with money. Good job tyla
Your homework (for all of you) is to write an essay of less than 1500 words discussing in detail the dangers of dogmatic pedantry on the part of those who don’t know what the hell they are talking about. Discuss how expressions like “one less something” are impeccable standard English and how expressions like “ten items or less” are also quite acceptable.