Mumsnet Talk

less honey.
Yep, I am being unreasonable, but it's basics and gets on my bloody nerves.

YANBU.

Pedants with 5 complaints or less fewer please cue queue hear here.

(Unless I've spectacularly missed the point and this thread is actually about the decline in the bee population. In which case YABU. )

Fewer gins, less tonic.

Fewer pedants, less sense.

But it's not grammar, it's a stylistic choice which you (presumably your teachers) have chosen to invent into a rule of grammar. It's modern (traced back to just 1770) and there's nothing confusing about it, complaining about it just shows off your own rigidity and lack of choice in writing style.

Do you follow all of the stylistic choices of Robert Baker - or just that one?

Vermicious No, I am not actually discussing the bee population!

Fewer apostrophes, less mistake's.

That's a relief, DawnDonna.

FredFredGeorge, I'm ignoring your post as it's messing with my pedant's certainty and I'm in danger of melt down.

YANBU. Once you're conscious of that particular rule, the violations are everywhere. <Throws more toast at the R4 Today Prog sports correspondent>

Decline in right type of plants, increased urbanisation and Varrowa mites been going on for several years.
Posting on MN won't help plant the right type of plants in your garden might. My garden was filled with honey bees all summer.

we had loads this summer as we have a patch in our garden where we planted wildflowers last year so we have had lots of bee's and butterflys =]]

Quite. Sow seeds, save a pendant pedant!



<doesn't even pretend to make sense anymore>

I don't want there to be fewer bees. I like honey.

It's "less bees."
<picky about grammar>

Fewer bees.

Fewer bees.

Less bees.

If it can be counted it's fewer.

You can't count bees. There are too many. Hence 'less'.

Veritable
Fewer.

You may not actually be able to count the, because the little buggers won't stay still, but theoretically they can be counted, therefore there are indeed FEWER bees making LESS honey.

And indeed varroa and total colony collapse (I think that last bit is right) are decimating the bee population - and soon there will be no natural pollenators left, and we'll all be going to hell in a handcart.

(I have an opinion on everything!)

There are too many.

Exactly, there are too many, not too much. In theory you can count them, therefore it's many bees and fewer bees. If it's less bees you would also have to say much bees.

Don't forget that for every one of those bees, there are six knees.

That's an awful lot of bees' knees.

\/ . ()()
| | |)- ,.'`'.,.'`'.,.'`'.,.'`'.,.'`'
` `/\/\/\

Less bees
Less bees
Less bee-age


Sorry, I've always wanted to do that on MN
hardly anyone says fewer and it is a LOVELY thing to see