Commonly Confused Words: fewer vs. less

[green_grrl]

Today's question is when to use fewer and when to use less. If you want to talk about more of something, it's always "more." But if you want to talk about less of something.... Why did I just say "less of something" and not "fewer of something"?

Comments

[garonne]

Thanks! This was very clear and useful.

By the way, something about one of your example sentences struck me: instinctively, I would have said that mixing up the two words changes the meaning completely, between 'The FEWER people knew about werewolves, the safer the pack was.' and 'The LESS people knew about werewolves, the safer the pack was.' With the former implying that 'If a small number of people know about werewolves, the pack is safe', and the latter implying that 'If people have a small amount of information about werewolves, the pack is safe.' Would you agree?

[green_grrl]

Yes, exactly! I actually initially wrote the examples as you showed-”The less people knew" and "The fewer people knew," but then I edited the "less" example to make it more clear which meaning I was going for with each.

[ascendant_angel]

Hi I'm new to the community; thank you for the helpful post.

I think I've got it, but just to check, could you tell me if this is correct?

The fewer people knew, and the less information they had, the safer the pack was.

Also should that last comma be a colon or semi colon instead? I feel so woefully uneducated, I'm in my 30's, but this is all completely new to me.

[green_grrl]

I'm so glad this comm is useful to you! And yes, you have it exactly right. People are countable and information isn't.

You're also correct to use the comma. In short, semicolons are used to separate complete sentences when you want them to be a little more connected than putting a period between them. Say you walked up to a friend and said, "The fewer people knew, and the less information they had." She stare at you for a while and then say, "What?! The fewer people knew, and the less information they had, what?" It's not a complete sentence on its own so you can't separate it from the rest with a semicolon. Colons are generally used to introduce something-a list, a note, an example, etc. Using the comma was the right call here.

You can find information posts by looking through the comm tags. For example, try punctuation:semicolon for info on when to use semicolons.