More and more I see the word "fewer" less and less. It's being replaced by "less" and seemingly falling into disuse. What is the reason for this? Is it as simple as the marketeers believing, "fewer calories" sounds "stuffier" than, "less calories," or is there some other reason?
(Please note I'm not asking for when to use each word. I'm curious about a trend I've observed in the usage itself.)
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4possible duplicate of "Less" vs. "fewer" – Alexandre Borela Aug 12 '15 at 01:46
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2Counting blindly, 'fewer' has always been less common than 'less', and contrary to your observation, 'fewer' has become more common over the past century. But that's a very context free graph. – Mitch Aug 12 '15 at 01:47
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I would attribute it to marketing , yes, but simply because "less is more" and "more is less" sound better/make more sense than "fewer is more" and "more is fewer." – Papa Poule Aug 12 '15 at 02:20
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Because any time you say a word is "doomed" it looses "face" to the other words and slips into a cave to hide its shame. – Hot Licks Aug 12 '15 at 03:15
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Because "lesser" is preferred by people of a lesser grammar-god. – Blessed Geek Aug 12 '15 at 04:06
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1To me, the trend is similar to verb regularization. There is a tailwind towards what's simpler, with fewer baroque rules. Since the antonyms for "less and fewer" are "more and more" there's pressure to eliminate fewer. – stevesliva Aug 12 '15 at 05:57
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Because people aren't learning this stuff in school, and feel that anything goes when it comes to expression. – michael_timofeev Aug 12 '15 at 14:17