Tag Archives: publix

Less or Fewer?

I usually shop at Publix, a grocery chain located here in the Southeast. Their customer service is outstanding – why go anywhere else?

But I also appreciate their commitment to good writing. For a long time their stores featured a sign that proclaimed, “We will never, knowingly, disappoint you.” Good sentence: I approve.

But at some point (and I think this was a good decision) the commas around “knowingly” disappeared. Now the sentence flows without interruption: “We will never knowingly disappoint you.”

Where I really see the commitment to good English is at the express line, which proclaims that it’s for customers with “10 or fewer items.” A lesser grocery chain (ha!) would have said “less than 10 items.”

How do you know which is correct – less or fewer?

Here’s the rule: Use “fewer” for things you can count; use “less” for things you can’t count. So it would be less coffee but fewer cups of coffee. You can’t count coffee, but you can count cups.

“Less” and “fewer” cause a great deal of confusion, and I congratulate Publix for getting “fewer” right. So many people don’t. And here, perversely, is what I’ve been hearing more and more often lately: “Fewer than one.” Nope. “Less than one.” So you would say, “There’s less than one day to shop for my brother’s wedding.”

But now it’s time for me to go to Publix to salute that sign over the express line.

Publix Wikipedia ok

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