I have long held the view that our children cannot read and write well because they don’t read and write enough. Becoming proficient at anything requires practice. Lurking in the back of my mind I’ve also had the notion that we see far too many bad examples that we take as proper usage because they are created by ostensible professionals.
I am particularly irked by issues of usage — like the Dole product described as “Pineapple chunks in its own juice.” That’s what the label on the can says. That this is actually on store shelves — that no one caught the error before this went out to the public, that no one has corrected it for some years, well, this is troubling indeed.
In case you don’t see the error, let me explain. If “Pineapple chunks in its own juice” were a sentence, the subject would be “chunks” — a plural. Thus we would say: “chunks in their own juice” or, in this case, “Pineapple chunks in their own juice.” The label seems to indicate that its creator believed “pineapple” to be the subject, but it is not, “pineapple” is used as an adjective to describe the kind of chunks. We would be correct to say: “Pineapple in its own juice.” But as soon as we add “chunks,” pineapple is no longer a noun and no longer the subject. The word “chunks” takes on that role. Chunks is plural and “their” should take the place of “its” to make subject and adjective match. Of course, “Pineapple chunks in its own juice” is not a sentence, it’s merely a label, so maybe the rules don’t apply. Still, it irritates.
I hear subject-verb mismatches occasionally on the evening news. Professional communicators say things like: “The bus filled with vacationeers were…” Really. The news anchor, supposedly a professional communicator, believed that “vacationeers” — a plural — was the subject of his sentence rather than the correct, but singular “bus.” Graduates of journalism school routinely make such errors in print and on the tube. For shame!
But — and this is the reason I was finally moved to write this blog entry — my ire is rasied each and every time I look for a check-out line and have to read something like: “10 items or less.” Now I know, because I have a high school education from back in the days when a high school education meant something, that the sign should say: “10 items or fewer” to be correct.
The distinction between “fewer” and “less” is a simple one. “Less” is to be used when talking about something in the aggregate — a collective noun, while “fewer” is to be used when comparing quantities.
Example: “I have less merchandise in my cart than you.” Here, “merchandise” is a collective noun referring to an unknown quantity of items in the aggregate. “Less” is used properly. Also correct: “I have fewer items in my cart than you.” Here, “items” is not a collective noun, it’s simply the plural form of “item” and as such, “fewer” is the correct comparison.
Incorrect: “I have fewer merchandise than you.” Also incorrect: “I have less items than you.” For some reason, of these two incorrect examples, the former sounds wrong to most people while, apparently, the latter does not. And so we end up with “10 items or less” signs deployed all over the country in nationally-known stores. Have they no one at these companies who retained enough of their education to see the error? (Assuming, of course, that their education actually included instruction on such distinctions — and this assumption is, regarding recent years, probably not correct.)
I hold no hope that this will ever be corrected. Like the misuse of “media” and “data” as singulars, wide-spread misuse over time will make the usage of “less,” when referring to quantities, perfectly acceptable, and “fewer” will largely disappear as has “datum.” Acceptable, however, is not the same as proper. People put up with a lot of things we know are not right. We shouldn’t.