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dianec42Wow. I actually had to use my Spanish today! (At the local supermercado, if you must know. The staff all seem to have basic English, but the customers don't.)
Toto, I don't think we're in the lily-white tourist town any more...
This is so cool. And my Spanish is *sooo* rusty. Good, that'll give me another skill to brush up on whilst I wait for the employers to beat down my door.
And by the way, said local supermercado actually gets the "fewer" usage RIGHT, unlike most of the supposedly English-based chains here. (As in, "12 items or FEWER", not "12 items or LESS".) Yay.
Toto, I don't think we're in the lily-white tourist town any more...
This is so cool. And my Spanish is *sooo* rusty. Good, that'll give me another skill to brush up on whilst I wait for the employers to beat down my door.
And by the way, said local supermercado actually gets the "fewer" usage RIGHT, unlike most of the supposedly English-based chains here. (As in, "12 items or FEWER", not "12 items or LESS".) Yay.
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Date: 2004-11-11 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-11 05:37 am (UTC)As I understand it, "fewer" should be applied to numbers of discrete items (do you have FEWER than 12 items in that basket, madam?), whereas "less" should be applied to amounts of collective stuff (I have LESS time to complete this LiveJournal than I had expected).
Someone who was paying more attention in English class than I was might be able to state the rule more precisely. For me, it's just one of those things that I know when I see it. And once I started noticing it, of course, I find myself unable to stop... (-: