Words Matter: Less Than Fewer

 

What are the human and political
implications in the difference be-
tween "fewer migrants" and "less
migrants?"

“where will the meanings be

when the words are forgotten”

--W.S. Merwin

 A number of years ago I began noticing that in print and common speech, there were fewer and fewer instances of “fewer,” and more and more of “less.”  By now, “fewer” has more or less disappeared.  And our language is the lesser for it.

 It used to be that people wrote and said “less water” but “fewer people”; “fewer fingers” but “less hair.”  There was a reason for the difference.  For generations we learned in school that you used “less” for quantity, and “few” and “fewer” for numbers of individual entities. “Less” was about measurement, “few” about counting.  Therefore: less cement and fewer bags, fewer parties and less dancing.  (There are a few complicated cases, but that's the basic--and meaningful---difference.)

 Few and fewer even held a kind of pride of place.  Because less covered more things (including abstractions etc), the words that merited “fewer” were fewer, and their individuality and specificity were emphasized.  

 Today everything is less.   I knew we reached the nadir when I recently read the expression “less units.”  That sounds like the death knell of the distinction between number of individuals (or units) and quantities.

 It’s ironic that it is happening in the computer age, which is probably responsible for it in part, with its vast power to quantify everything.  For the digital age is based on digits, meaning numbers.  Most lives now center on various but precise numbers of zeroes and ones strung together. 

 As far as I know, nobody simply decided that there was less need for fewer, but the implied argument is that the opposite of both few and less is “more.”  So why not get rid of the complication, the possible confusion and embarrassment of using the wrong word, by getting rid of the word? It’s one less word to worry about, right?  

 As “fewer” has disappeared into “less,” so “number” has disappeared into “amount.” For instance, Bill and Luke Walton are the only father and son to both win two NBA championships, or as Wikipedia puts it, Luke’s two rings are “the same amount as his father won.” 

 The disappearance of the few/less, or number/amount distinction isn’t just an American phenomenon. A quick Internet search yielded examples from most English- speaking countries, including articles from UK’s Economist (“less people, more water”) and AllAfrica.com. (“Less People Buy Bibles as Condom Sales Soar.”)

  “The use of ‘less people’ etc. is so common in British English that there seems little point in claiming it as an error,” wrote a teacher in Great Britain to her listserv. Another agreed that “fewer” is archaic.  “…Less means the same as fewer,” wrote someone in a different discussion on the subject. “ So what is wrong with plain English, simpler English?  Want to write a Victorian novel?  Use fewer.”

Apart from the dismissive scorn, the implied point is that we moderns understand that fewer words makes more sense. In plenty of cases this general notion is demonstrable, but depleting the language of a meaningful and useful word only lessens the ability to make the distinctions that a sophisticated language is built to express.  That’s important in a complex society as well as a democracy.  

The other argument for less is the natural evolution of language, but not every change is better, let alone necessary.  We’re clearly in the midst of a pendulum swing from the sternly prescriptive model to the mindlessly (or should I say robotically) descriptive, which will only accelerate as hyper-descriptive AI programs rule the information world. 

Unfortunately, words are not objects of fashion.  They aren’t handbags or hats. They are text and subtext of communication and meaning, and in the end they tell us who we are.

Just as the relatively sudden elimination of the fewer/less distinction may have subconscious causes, the effects of it may also seep into how we see the world. There may even be an attack on certain values of our society reflected in this elimination.  Perhaps we need to ask what has changed with the phrase “less people.”  Is it only the grammar of “fewer” and “less,” or is it our underlying idea of people?   

In changing how we express the outcome of a count, are we changing our conception of what we are measuring?  Do we see people only in aggregates, and not in affiliations?  Do we now consider people not as integers with integrity, but as quantities that are classified according to common characteristics?  

 Perhaps in our marketing-minded society, numbers of people translate too easily into quantities of money, or of votes. If votes are just quantities, then stealing them is just theft. But if votes are individual commitments added up, to cheat is to dishonor the people who stood in line at the polls for hours in the rain.  “Count the votes” means the voters must count more than the outcome.

  Quantity applies to objects, implying a passivity, of being acted upon.  Number and counting suggest subject, capable of action:  “Stand and be counted.”  Few can become many. When quantities of money have overpowering political effects, only numbers of people can balance it.

 “Fewer” has a dignity lacking in “less.”  By treating persons as quantities we send a message of disrespect, which then becomes a deficit of self-respect.The cause of human rights is based on the individual as significant, not as an indistinguishable element in a quantity that doesn’t count. When justice or health depend more on quantities of money and power, individuals count less.

  Turning people into quantities denies their individual qualities, and their individual stories.  Individuals must be judged on their merits. They must be counted.  Quantities don’t count—they can more easily be objectified, the first step to othering.  

Where people appear most as quantities is at the border, literally.  Immigrants are not only the most conspicuous other, they symbolize the other as a mass, as quantity.  It is the fear of their quantity that haunts people now, especially a subset of those who define themselves as white people.   Think about the human as well as the political implications in the difference between "fewer migrants" and "less migrants."  As in "Fewer migrants might have drowned had surrounding ships attempted rescue sooner."  Or "There are now less migrants because the ships did not attempt rescue."  

We see what we now call “migrants” as amounts, but seldom look at any—or even pictures of any-- as individuals. If we did, we would perhaps recognize a smile like an uncle had, or a frightened child like we once were. But even if they remain as strange looking as perhaps our own ancestors, we might hear individual stories of fleeing violence, oppression and the ravages of climate disruption. We would have to see that they count as humans like us.  Or like our blood ancestors, even parents or grandparents, when they were immigrants.  This is not to deny that mass migration is a problem for nations—it will become an ever bigger one as climate distortion effects worsen and spread.  But losing a sense of individuals is a poor way to start addressing it. 

 Losing the related sense of number to the universal amount also robs us of specificity and perhaps even poetic impact.  We speak of the amorphous amount of time but the number of days—a more specific and powerful accounting of time, as in the Biblical verse: “Teach us to number our days that we may get us a heart of wisdom.” 

 Our language is less flexible and exact for losing fewer, and so are we as human beings, and as human societies.  I suppose there may be an entire generation by now that has never used or even heard the word “fewer” in many contexts.  But neither that, nor anyone’s snide scorn, will take the word away from me, because I know at least some of its value. This word matters. So I’m proud to be counted as one of the few.