Greater Than or Less Than (or is it Fewer Than)

Prescriptive grammarians would find the sign on the left cringeworthy, preferring the sign to the right by a long shot.





The reason for this language peeve is that grocery store items are items that can be counted. Any number of grammar sites and blogs will tell you that the word less is used with mass nouns and the word fewer is used with count nouns.

For more about the difference between mass nouns and count nouns click here.

The reason I bring up this prescribed rule is because of the exceptions to the rule.

My son recently asked me why, if numbers can be counted, are the phrases greater than and less than used in mathematics.

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Well, every rule has exceptions and according to Washington State University "the exceptions to the less/fewer pattern are references to units of time and money, which are usually treated as amounts: less than an hour, less than five dollars. Only when you are referring to specific coins or bills would you use fewer: 'I have fewer than five state quarters to go to make my collection complete.'"

Based on this analysis, if I said 8 > 3, I would be comparing the amounts (or mass) of the two individual numbers and not talking about the counting of (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) of the numbers.

Mass and Count Nouns - brought to you by Meijer

This is one of two themed billboards that has been peppering Michigan expressways this spring.

The other looks almost identical, save for the final noun phrase which replaces fewer stops with less run-around.

I don't think it is any coincidence that the two separate billboards always seem to appear within a few miles of each other. Meijer's advertising agency copywriters certainly know the difference between mass and count nouns. Funny thing is, I am not a frequent Meijer shopper, so I can't recall whether their check-out lanes are labeled X number items or less, or X number items or fewer.

Bananas and Rices

This probably isn't something many people think about on a regular basis, but when you do stop to think about it, it seems odd. Why is it one banana but not one rice? Why two bananas but not two rices? Both words, banana and rice, are nouns. So why do they behave differently? The answer is that they are different kinds of nouns. The word banana is a type of noun known as a count noun. One banana, two bananas, three bananas and so forth. The word rice is a type of noun known as a mass noun. Mass nouns cannot be counted and are only pluralized when referring to a particular type of that object, for example: The restaurant introduced some new wines. This is why mass nouns require an additional descriptive noun in order to talk about them in terms of quantity. Grain of rice, bottle of wine, piece of wood, and so on.