‘less’ is to ‘fewer’, as’more’ is to what?
Is more than fewer the same as less? I prefer using fewer instead of less when referring to discrete items. Something sounds off about less than 10 people in my opinion.
Why do people turn to the flip side? Do more than ten people sounds right? If less and more are natural antonyms, then what word relates to more the same way fewer relates to less?
Why do people write this book “Believe Me”?
Which equation is right: less is to fewer as more is to more?
- More water; less water
- more dogs; less/fewer dogs
- 10 items or more ; 10 items or less/fewer
- one more bell to answer; one less bell to answer
- weighing 100 pounds more ; weighing 100 pounds less
- 500 words or more ; 500 words or less
- or less than 10,000 miles; less than 10,000
miles avoiding obstacles and stopping at point of origin ; 10,000 yards or better ; 10,000 feet or fewer ; weighing a person of zero, less than 500 pounds.
What is a ”little *and* ”less as less is
to fewer” as more is more?
For a metric noun, ‘less’ refers to uncountable noun and ‘fewer’ refers to countable nouns. (See also the discussion of “Lessons for the masses”). However, the concept in the mind of the speaker is influential. We can say, ‘less than a thousand miles’ because the concept in the mind of the speaker is distance, which is not countable. Similarly, bridge players often assess the strenth of their hand by points but it does not offend me to hear “I had less than ten points” because the concept in the mind of the speaker is strength not points.
As nohat pointed out, the distinction does not exist for more. As far as I understand it, it could be said “less’ is to fewer, as much’s to many” though.
We do say “less than, greater than” but other than adding “even” we don’t really change “more” to fit the noun. Is there more people than yesterday? “Those are both comparisons. If you didn’t want to compare and if you didn’t want to use the word “more”, you could potentially say “We have a great number of people. That one could be confusing though because it could be any number that your personal opinion deems as good relative to a large number; so in that case it might be better to say “we have a lot of people” or “We have many people…”
I thought you can use less to things that cannot be measured like water. Ex: Less water. “Positive”, or, reduced, in a word, for things that can be counted. Is it true
that the “number of people” you have seen is relatively fewer?
