Less (pronounced les)
(1) As
an adverb or adjective, a comparative of little, with least as the superlative.
(2) To
a smaller extent, amount, or degree.
(3) An
emphasizer when conveying “most certainly not” (often preceded by much or
still).
(4) In
any way different; other (as in “nothing less than a scoundrel).
(5) Smaller
in size, amount, degree, etc.; not so large, great, or much.
(6) Lower
in consideration, rank, or importance; something inferior or not as important.
(7) A
synonym for fewer, though subject to conventions of use.
(8) As
the adjectival suffix –less, used to convey the meaning “without” (eg
breathless), and in adjectives derived from verbs, indicating failure or
inability to perform or be performed (eg tireless).
(9) When
truncated as a conjunction, it means “unless” (increasingly rare but preserved
in the forms of some rituals).
Pre
900: From the Middle English les, lesse, lease & lasse, from the Old English lǣs (adverb) & lǣssa
(adjective) (less, lest) from the Proto Germanic laisiz (smaller, lesser, fewer, lower), from the
primitive Indo-European leys- (to
shrink, grow thin, become small, be gentle). It was cognate with the Old Frisian lês (adverb) & lêssa (adjective)
(less) and the Old Saxon lēs (less). The Old English was a special use of lēas (free from, lacking, without, false)
which was cognate with the Old Norse lauss
and the German los & loose. It
existed also as –lās. In Modern English, the verb and noun came
respectively from the Middle English lessen
and lesse, from the determiner. The conjunction “less” indicating “unless” is
now increasingly rare but preserved in the forms of some rituals. It dates from the early fifteenth century,
the extended contraction of lessen, “less'n” was a US dialectal form attested
from 1881. As an adverb, it’s often been
used with negatives (eg none the less); “much less” (still more undesirable
yet) dating from the 1630s. It was
formerly used to convey "younger," as a translation of the Classical Latin
minor, but that’s now obsolete except in historic biblical use as “James the
Less”, a translation often misleading for modern readers. Less is a noun, verb, adjective & adverb, lesser is a noun & adjective, lessness is a noun, lessed & lessing are verbs. Whether the noun lessness has much use other than in science and philosophy seems unlikely.
Fewer (pronounced fyoo-er)
(1) As
an adjective, of a smaller number.
(2) As
a pronoun (used with a plural verb), a smaller number:
(3) A
synonym for less (but subject to conventions of use).
(4) The
comparative degree of few; a smaller number.
Pre 900: The construct was few + -er. Few was from the From
Middle English fewe, from the Old English fēaw (few),
from the Proto-Germanic fawaz (few), from the primitive
Indo-European pehew- (few, small). It was cognate with
the Old Saxon fā (few), the Old High German fao
& fō (few, little), the Old Norse fár (few),
the Gothic faus (few) and the Latin paucus (little,
few). From paucus, English gained pauper, poor etc, the
noun paucity, often used as a substitute for less &
fewer. Paucity, was in the early fifteenth century borrowed from the
French paucite (smallness of quantity, scantiness), from the
fourteenth century Old French paucité and directly from the
Latin paucitatem, from paucitas (fewness,
scarcity, a small number), from paucus (few, little), from the
primitive Indo-European pau-ko-, a suffixed form of the root pau-
(few, little). The –er suffix was from the Middle
English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the
Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought usually to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius
and reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the
Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor,
from the primitive Indo-European -tōr. The –er suffix was
added to verbs to create a person or thing that does an action indicated by the
root verb; used to form an agent noun. If added to a noun it usually
denoted an occupation. Fewer is an adjective & pronoun; the superlative is fewest.
Fewer
was from the Middle English feue, feawe,
fewe & fewere, from the Old English fēawera,
genitive plural of fēawa (few) and
later contracted to fea (not many, a
small number; seldom, even a little), from the Proto-Germanic fawaz (source also of the Old Saxon fa, the Old Frisian fe, the Old High German fao,
the Old Norse far & the Danish faa, from the primitive Indo-European
root pau- (few, little). It was thought in Old English always to have been a plural form, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) basing this on “the analogy of the adverbial fela" which meant "many". The phrase “few and far between” dates from the 1660s and is a use of the word as conventionally understood but there was also the quirky dialectical (north of England) use which is quite subversive: “a good few” which actually means “a good many”, noted in 1803 but presumed to have been long in use and spreading slowly from its regional origin.
Conventions
of Use
Lindsay
Lohan rendered with fewer freckles.
In many cases, “less” and “fewer” may without
clumsiness be used interchangeably but, being English, there are exceptions so
the mere avoidance of the clumsy may be a good a practice as the distinction in
grammar, whether thought a rule or convention.
The rule, as usually explained, is to use “fewer” when referring to
things which may be counted (ships, questions, restrictions etc) and less for
stuff which can’t be reduced to a precise numerical value (love, hate, oxygen,
stuff etc). That sort of works in that
“fewer” can be applied only to nouns but, “less” is often attached to both the uncountable
and countable and with good reason: “twenty minutes or less” a better sentence
that “twenty minutes or fewer” which is why “less” is so used with such
frequency. The best trick is to assess the
clumsiness: there’s none in “twelve items or less” but “the cat is fewer playful
than the kitten” is absurd so a fuzzier “rule” like “fewer means ‘not as many’ and
less means ‘not as much’, while not bulletproof, is more helpful. The grammar Nazis do take this seriously and sometimes
demand the same diligence from others.
Not long ago, one UK supermarket chain responded to the many complaints
received about "Ten Items or Less" and changed their check-out signage to “Up to Ten Items” although that
may have excited the pedants to point out the ambiguity and demand Tesco make
clear if that’s really “as many as ten items” or just a maximum of nine, 9 being not quite 10.
Lindsay
Lohan wearing less lingerie.
The intrusion of less where fewer probably belongs is
not new, used this way since Old English and that was centuries ago. The “rule” that aims to create a sharp
distinction between “less” and “fewer” can be dated from 1770 when, in his Reflections on the English Language In the Nature of Vaugelas's Reflections on the French; ... To which is Prefixed a Discourse Addressed to His Majesty, the grammarian Robert Baker declared the
expression “no fewer than a hundred” looked more elegant and was therefore
correct English and his view proved influential; well before the turn of the
twentieth century, the style and grammar guides now emphatic Mr Baker’s opinion
was a rule. It was of course never a
rule but certainly was a useful convention of use to adopt and one which may be summarized: (1) Fewer refers numbers of things and is used with count nouns.
Less refers to quantities of things, and is generally used with mass nouns (fewer
Calories, less sugar), (2) Less is also used to modify units of time, money,
measurement, and other general statistics (fewer days, less time) and where a mass
noun can become countable, fewer may be applied and (3), Less may also used for
some specific constructions (2000 words or less). The use of "less than" where the pedants would prefer "fewer than" is well-documented and not just in this century. The historian AJP Taylor (1906-1990), whatever his politics, not one with any fondness for new ways in the language, when discussing the casualty figures from the Great War, wrote "Less than 1,500 civilians were killed by enemy action from sea or air" in English History 1914-1945. That was published in 1965 yet within a decade, in his 1972 biography of his hero Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964), "fewer than" had crept in.
Despite all
those dictates, the phrase “...which lasted two years or less” is grammatically
correct and “...which lasted two years or less” is not. That would seem to contradict the “rule” in
that “years” is here evidently treated as uncountable even though it appears in
a plural form and “years” obviously are countable. The explanation lies in the difference
between counting discrete items versus measuring a total quantity or extent: (1)
When years are countable (discrete) and thus individual years are being counted
as separate entities, “fewer” is correct” “She spent fewer years in Berlin than
did he.” (2) When years are treated as a
“duration” (and thus not distinct units) “years” (as something of a “linguistic
fiction”) shifts to an uncountable sense, and “less” is used: “The war lasted
less than two years” (the focus being on a continuous quantity of time, the
units become (for grammatical purposes), uncountable.
The misuse of
“less” was one of the many things which the stern Henry Fowler (1858–1933) discussed
in his classic A Dictionary of Modern
English Usage (1926) and after dealing with “less vs fewer”, the turned his
pen to “–less” as a suffix, the use of which he damned as increasingly promiscuous:
“To those who
have any regard for the interests of the language as distinguished from its pliability
to their immediate purposes, it will seem of some importance that it should not
become necessary, with every word in which -less is appended to what can be either
a noun or a verb, to decide which is this time intended. If the verb-compounds become much more frequent, we shall never know that ‘pitiless’ and ‘harmless’ may not mean ‘that
cannot be pitied’ and ‘secure against being harmed’ as well as ‘without the instinct
of pity’ and ‘without harmfulness’. We
ought to be able to assume that, with a few well-known exceptions, ‘-less’
words mean simply without what is signified by the noun they contain; and the
way to keep that assumption valid is to abstain from reckless compounding of ‘-less’
with verbs’.”
Such was Henry
Fowler’s plea in 1926 for grammatical hygiene.
Seventy years on saw the publication of a third edition and in New Fowler's Modern English Usage (1996)
Robert Burchfield (1923–2004) would note of “-less” the suffix: “This suffix
forming adjectives was already strongly established in Old English (OE) (spelt ‘-lêas’);
it stood beside the separate adjective ‘lëas’ governing a genitive, as ‘firena lëas'
(free from crimes). The first element of
such compounds was always a noun (eg ‘wïflëas’ (without a wife)). The separate adjective ‘lêas” did not survive
in Middle English (ME), but the suffix ‘-lëas’ (which became our -less) attached to nouns created a virtually
limitless class of words. Examples (with
date of first record); aimless 1627, endless
OE, homeless 1615, landless OE, lawless ME, penniless ME, pitiless ME, restless OE, timeless 1560. In many instances
the nouns to which the suffix was attached was a noun of action, coincident in
form with the stem of the corresponding verb, and some of the adjectives so
formed had the sense 'not to be —ed', 'un—able' (rather than devoid of), e.g.
countless (1588), numberless (1573)- On the supposed analogy of these words,
the suffix became appended to many verbs, eg abashless (1868), dauntless (1593).
resistless (1586), tireless (1591), weariless (1430). But of all such formations only countless, dauntless,
numberless, and tireless survive.
As a living suffix -less can be appended now only to nouns, and not, except
fancifully, to verbs. Fowler's spirited
crusade (1926) against the formation of new words in -less formed on verb stems
is now only of historical interest.” Not all approved of the 1996 revisions, some
detecting a retreat from Fowler’s rigorous standards but there was some
support, one reviewer in the Evening Standard (once thought a “better class of
tabloid”) judging Burchfield “less bufferish and funnier than Fowler”.
