A question and reply
My email to my professor, and her corresponding reply:
Dear Professor McDowell,
As a recent alum of your writing class, I turn to you with a major dilemma. Just a few moments ago, I was in the process of updating one of my many fabulous social networking sites, with the following phrase,
"Less than 24 hours to Pi Day!"
After a few moments of thought, I revised it to say,
"Fewer than 24 hours to Pi Day!"
My thought was, of course, that because there were a distinct number of hours, the time until Pi Day occurred had to be discretely fewer hours than the 24 previously mentioned. Then I began to realize that the amount of time until Pi Day did not occur in exact hours. Between each hour were minutes, seconds, milliseconds...each discrete measurement serving as a further division of time.
Ultimately, I saw that my intention for correct grammar had turned into a philosophical question of whether or not time is discrete. Oops.
And so, I write to you to plea for an answer. What is the best way to express my timely anticipation for Pi Day?
Jess
Hey, Jessica. How lovely to hear from you-and with so vital a question as well. I can tell you that the correct version is “Fewer than 24 hours . . .”, because the countable noun there is “hours”. But Joseph Williams tells us that careful readers may sometimes use (and careful readers often won’t mind this) “less” when referring to count nouns. Thus the agony endured by those of us who see the sign on the express lane at the store: the gritting of the teeth; the repetition of “Fewer!” in a vehement whisper; the crazed desire to leave the cart filled with toilet paper, condensed soup, high-fiber cereal and other essentials sitting in the middle of an aisle and go on a quest to find a business that cares about grammatical issues.
So you are free to choose. Just have a reason for your choice, because some other Facebooker with too much time to waste is sure to call you on it, no matter which word you use.
Cheers-
SMcD
Dear Professor McDowell,
As a recent alum of your writing class, I turn to you with a major dilemma. Just a few moments ago, I was in the process of updating one of my many fabulous social networking sites, with the following phrase,
"Less than 24 hours to Pi Day!"
After a few moments of thought, I revised it to say,
"Fewer than 24 hours to Pi Day!"
My thought was, of course, that because there were a distinct number of hours, the time until Pi Day occurred had to be discretely fewer hours than the 24 previously mentioned. Then I began to realize that the amount of time until Pi Day did not occur in exact hours. Between each hour were minutes, seconds, milliseconds...each discrete measurement serving as a further division of time.
Ultimately, I saw that my intention for correct grammar had turned into a philosophical question of whether or not time is discrete. Oops.
And so, I write to you to plea for an answer. What is the best way to express my timely anticipation for Pi Day?
Jess
Hey, Jessica. How lovely to hear from you-and with so vital a question as well. I can tell you that the correct version is “Fewer than 24 hours . . .”, because the countable noun there is “hours”. But Joseph Williams tells us that careful readers may sometimes use (and careful readers often won’t mind this) “less” when referring to count nouns. Thus the agony endured by those of us who see the sign on the express lane at the store: the gritting of the teeth; the repetition of “Fewer!” in a vehement whisper; the crazed desire to leave the cart filled with toilet paper, condensed soup, high-fiber cereal and other essentials sitting in the middle of an aisle and go on a quest to find a business that cares about grammatical issues.
So you are free to choose. Just have a reason for your choice, because some other Facebooker with too much time to waste is sure to call you on it, no matter which word you use.
Cheers-
SMcD