"few if any" vs "few, if any"

Question

Below are two sentences for the discussion:

There may be few if any other plumbers working in Moore's town. (Source: from an LSAT)
There may be few, if any, other plumbers working in Moore's town. (This is my own adaptation by adding commas)

If I understood correctly, few means a very small amount of number. Also, By MW, "few if any" means not very many or none at all.

So is it correct to say: 1. expresses two possible scenarios: 1-2 other plumbers and none; whereas, 2. only mention the scenario of 1-2 other plumbers?

Thank you for the help.

It looks like to me that the first sentence has just been carelessly punctuated. — Mozibur Ullah, Mar 28 '21 at 03:52
It would be hard for me to realize that an LSAT probably contains an ungrammatical sentence. — Lenny, Mar 28 '21 at 07:45

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 28 '21 at 04:31

The phrase 'if any' is parenthetical, no matter what is meant.

A parenthetical phrase (which can be a single word or a quite long clause) adds meaning to the sentence in which it appears but is not a fundamental part of the sentence.

Parenthetical phrases should always be surrounded with punctuation either parenthetical commas, brackets or, in some cases, dashes.

This means, as Mozibur Ullah says in a comment above, that the first sentence is incorrectly punctuated. Changing the punctuation does not change the meaning.

In the above paragraphs the parenthetical phrases are written in bold type

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 28 '21 at 03:51

0

Both meanings match the Mirriam-Webster definition. You may also see it written as "... few (if any) ..."

answered Mar 28 '21 at 03:51

somewhatsapient

101

"few if any" vs "few, if any"

2 Answers2