A challenge

[desperance]

In honour of my reply to kateelliott in this post about spelling, here's an amusing little challenge for the grammar queens among you:

A couple of days ago on Radio 4, I heard someone say "three or less" and I lay still and said nothing, did not scream "fewer!" or twitch or show any reaction at all. I was alive; I was not paralysed; I was not dreaming. What was going on?

Comments

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

Curare?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

That's a paralytic, isn't it? As it happens, I was entirely unmedicated.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

You have me so trained that I cannot hear the word "less" without a little voice in my head (yours, as it happens) say "fewer?", and I have to pause and check. However...

I can imagine a coversation which goes "How many spoonsful...?" or years, or miles, or whatever, to which the answer "Three or less" would not be wrong, exactly, though not what I'd have said: "Three, or less", possibly (more likely "Less than three", though).

OK, I give in.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Right area, but you're not allowed to give in quite that easily.

Hint: read my post more carefully. There are Clues in the text...

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

It might have been referring to age ('Children of three or less..')??? I know that it's 'fewer' when you're talking about a group of things ('6 items or fewer') but I'm sorry, I haven't a clue about the actual rule. Help?

Mind, nothing on earth can excuse the aberration 'early doors' (Spurs scored early doors, but lost 3 - 1) or the rarer 'late doors'. When I hear either (usually on a sports programme) I scream.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I think you'd generally say "three or under" for kids - but still, right sort of thinking. I'm still withholding cigars.

I don't know any official wording for a rule (I was never taught this, just worked it out from good practice and what was blatantly bad, what sounded wrong), but if you go with "fewer in number, less in bulk", that works as a rule of thumb. If you have a bowl full of coffee beans and I grab a handful, you have less coffee but fewer beans.

"Early doors" is, as you say, abominable. I don't know where it came from, but I wish it would go back. "Late doors" I have - blessedly! - never heard.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Weight?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Keep thinkin'. Hints get more forceful soon.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

"Let N be a number greater than or equal to 4. What does 7 minus N equal?"

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Okay, 'less' applies to non-countables, but it isn't hard and fast, it can be used quite correctly with numbers in a couple of situations. One is where the number refers not directly to an amount (three cows) but to the size of the amount -- so with nouns of size like kilo. So your example may hae been something like 'How many kilos? Three or less.' (But I'd have used fewer there, personally.) The other correct usage is with the word number itself, or so I'm told. Can't think of an example, though.
Kari (who cheated a little and double-checked with Longman's Guide to English Usage because she wasn't 100% sure.)

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

This is a pointless battle, IMHO. Less has been synonymous with fewer in English for centuries. What, exactly, is it that dictates that it is "incorrect"?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I don't think they're synonymous at all; they talk about different relationships. To take away part of a whole is not inherently the same as to take away some of a number; and the more we lose these fine distinctions, the more we blunt the language.

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

There are many solutions, such as "I usually listen to Radio Three, or less often, Radio Two", where "fewer" would be wronger.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Is true, it does depend where you punctuate - but I wasn't cheating.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

You were being kissed?

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

Pogodragon suggests you were role-playing a dead body and the radio was on during rehearsals, though such necro-dramatics seem a poor excuse to not resist the Forces of Darkness.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

That's an even lovelier suggestion than any of the foregoing, and I'm kind of sorry it isn't true. I shall now expose the awful truth, in a fresh post so's everybody can throw stones at me...

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

Are you referring to the number of days 'a couple' may be? It's the only clue that I can see and I'm sure we've discussed the whole 'how many is a couple' thing before.