• Grammar

    Subjective Modifiers

    On NBC’s June 18 Nightly News, Lester Holt asked Kristen Bell about the number of current-events discussions she’s had with her two girls (5 and 7) recently. Kristen replied, “Quite a few.” And then it struck me: “Quite a few”? How weird is it that people use “quite a few” to connote “quite a lot”? It doesn’t make sense. (“Quite” doesn’t make much sense either, given that it has no meaning. How much more is “quite a lot” than just “a lot”? And, for that matter, how many are “a lot” or “a few”? But that’s an issue for a different column.) Suppose you asked the owner of a recently…

  • Grammar,  Preview,  Word/Phrase Selection

    Fewer or Less?

    So, you’re in a check-out line in a grocery store. You have seven items in your cart. You count them, because – above the checkout conveyor – you notice a sign: 12 ITEMS OR LESS, the sign advises. Then the realization hits: “I HATE THIS PLACE,” you scream and, with dozens of shoppers looking on, you throw everything in your cart every which way and stalk out of the store, now yelling “THE WHOLE WORLD IS GOING TO HELL!” The problem? The sign should have read, 12 ITEMS OR FEWER, a mistake not made in Safeway stores, I’m told. Assuming something like this hasn’t yet happened to you, it could…