Thursday, May 14, 2009

Fewer or Less

I had a lady come into work today and talk to me about how her grocery shopping went and in her sentences she used a word wrong.  I am not the grammar kind I never use words the right way and normally don't care how other use them but this time it bothered me. Maybe it was  because I was giving a 90 minute massage at 9 in the morning and wished I could go back to sleep so I was a bit more temperamental than normal or because I was stuck in the room with her for 90 min while she told the hour long story using this work in the wrong way. She kept saying "I needed less apples than what i got at the store because now I'm left with extra" It believe she should say I needed fewer apples because now I have to many. The rule  is:  "fewer" is normally for things you count like 1 apple 2 apple, and "less" is for things you measure like less water will make it thicker: "fewer apples", "less water". 
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Jacob is normally the one of us that uses the correct grammar 18/5 I'm more like 5/1 instead of 24/7
anyways.

4 comments:

Mars said...

uh pretty sure she could have just said "I didn't need as many apples as I got and now I have extra" I agree though, lesser sounds weird. I'm pretty sure that's not right. ew that bugs. Dumb lady. She seriously told that story for 90 min? That's painful. Especially in the morning...

Lacey Lou Who said...

Hello! I am so glad that you found my blog! yours is so cute and congats on getting married! That's so exciting! your story about the crazy lady was cracking me up!

Laura said...

I know!!!! I'm so excited to stalk.... I mean... read your blog!!!!

Crystal said...

I'm so with you on this. Have you ever noticed that the express lane at Walmart says 15 or less items? Targets says 10 or fewer items.