Fewer

Two paths diverged before me at the supermarket. I was carrying my two items, something for lunch and some milk, facing a choice of which lane to take to pay for my things.

There were two express lanes open. One read “15 items or less.” The other read “15 items or fewer.” If you look at just the math, either applies to me with my two items. But look at the linguistic issues in those two signs and a deeper dilemma emerges.

The “less” sign maybe dated from a less enlightened time, when the supermarket people thought such verbiage was correct. These days, we know better. After all, if you can break the nouns down into individual, tangible elements, it’s “fewer.” If the nouns are one amorphous mass, it’s “less.” So: less food but fewer items. The sign clearly says these are items so the “fewer” sign probably arose after the store wised up and honed its knowledge.

Or maybe it’s all just a trap for people like me, people who got an English degree 20 years ago and who now pay the mortgage by sitting in an office and recalling the differences between “lay” and “lie,” or “discreet” and “discrete.” If I go through the wrong checkout lane, will my college professors jump out from behind the gift card display and whack me over the head three times with a mortar board, symbolically revoking my BA degree?

In the end, it’s no contest. I skip the empty “less” lane and get behind two people in the lane marked “fewer.”