Where it All Began: The Grocery Store

Lesser (or Fewer?) of Two Evils

Being a grammar guru, I have a lot of pet peeves related to grammar. A lot. My husband jokes that if I become any more irritated by grammatically incorrect signs and advertisements, we won’t be able to go anywhere any more, much less shop anywhere. He may be correct.

I tried a while back to boycott all stores that had check-out lane signs that broke the less-versus-fewer rule. It’s a really easy rule that many people don’t even realize exists. So of course it’s a pet peeve of mine.

The problem? Several grocery stores use signs at check-outs that read, “12 items or less.”

Can you hear my teeth grinding?

It’s not just because of the person in the fast lane with four hundred items.

The fast-lane signs should read, “12 items or fewer.” The store that I find has the lowest prices on the items I need most often is one of the offenders. Drat! And I’ve found that none of the grocery stores I boycotted for the erroneous signs replaced them with grammatically correct ones because of my lack of business. Bugger!

But back to the grammar. Why, you ask, should the signs say fewer instead of less? Fewer is the comparative adjective used for items that can be counted. You should use less when referring to something that must be measured. This is a fairly black-and-white rule with few ways to confuse it. Examples are as numerous as you can imagine: fewer cakes, less sugar; fewer miles, less distance; fewer appointments, less stress.

The answer is as simple as, “Do I count them, or do I measure it?”

The other answer is, “No, I should not get in the 12-items-or-fewer lane with my overflowing cart of groceries.” Not all my pet peeves are grammar-related.