Less or Fewer?

189,733 views ・ 2013-02-13

English with Alex


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:02
Hey, guys. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking and welcome to this lesson on
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"less" and "fewer". So these are comparative adjectives that we use when we want to compare two
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things, usually. Or when we want to make a statement that talks about how something
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is decreasing or a decreased number of something or somebody is happening,
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etc. So, we have two sentences here.
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We have, "Fewer/less people today carry cash",
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and we have, "There is fewer," or,
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"less privacy today because of social media".
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So, which of these words do you think is correct in these two sentences? All
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right, so again, I'm going to give you the correct answer,
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and then I'm going to explain why it's the answer and what the rule is.
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So, the first sentence we have,
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"Fewer", or, "less people today carry cash".
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What do you think it is? All right,
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if you said, "Fewer people today carry cash.",
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you are absolutely correct. Okay.
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I'll explain in a moment.
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Stick with me. Again, the second one,
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"There is fewer or less privacy today because of social media".
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The answer here you have probably deduced is "less".
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So, why? Why do we say "fewer people" and not "less people".
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Maybe you're walking around right now and you're saying,
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"Yeah, there are less people here than I expected".
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Or, "There are less bottles of water than what we really need".
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Okay? If you're saying those things,
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you're wrong, and I'm going to tell you why.
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Grammatically you're wrong. You're not wrong as a person.
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As a human being, I'm sure you're lovely.
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However, grammatically, it's incorrect. Okay, so "fewer"...
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...fewer we use with countable nouns, all right?
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So if you can say one,
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two, three, four of whatever the noun is,
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you can use "fewer" with it.
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So, for example, people. You can count people.
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You can count water bottles.
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You can count computers. You can count tables,
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etc., etc., etc. Okay? So if it's countable,
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use "fewer", and if you've probably discerned by now,
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with "less" this is used with uncountable nouns.
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Okay? Now, what I mean by uncountable nouns,
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things you can't count. These can be abstract concepts like privacy or freedom,
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or liberty, or any number of things that you can't count such as water.
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Right? So you don't say, "Wow.
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There is fewer water in this bottle than what I was expecting or what I
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hoping for". You'd say, "No.
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There's less water in here than what I would like".
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Okay? So, again, if you can count it,
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use "fewer". If you can't count it,
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use "less". Very simple rule, easy to follow.
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If you would like to test your understanding of this grammar point,
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please check out the quiz on engvid.com.
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Good luck, guys.
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Learn English for free www.engvid.com
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