Same Luxury, Less Lorries.

[Reality]

I was so enraged by this in Tesco yesterday that I took a photo. It's on their loo rolls.

Why, Tesco, why?

It pains me more than the 10 Items or Less sign.

WIBU to complain to the CEO or someone?

[Strumpetron]

any need?

[wiganwagonwheelworks]

Well, I showed my students the Facebook page to save fewer from extinction and they said that the person who created it must have too much time on their hands. And other unpleasant things. It is quite annoying watching language change, but trying to stop it is like trying to drink an ocean...

[Strumpetron]

We've all got too much time on our hands, we're on here for starters

[TidyDancer]

Oh dear! It would bother me too, but you will be mocked endlessly in their office.

[wiganwagonwheelworks]

that's what I told them

[TheWomanTheyCallJayne]

Fewer freighters...

[Gruntfuttock]

That email is rather melodramatic and will just make them laugh, unfortunately. I do get annoyed at mistakes like this though. It's hardly difficult to grasp when to use 'less' and when 'fewer'.

[FredFredGeorge]

It's not bad grammar to anyone but a prescriptivist who has chosen that as one of things they care about. It's a modern rule, likely traced back to Baker and the "wrong" is available in all classic literature.

The Cambridge Guide to English Usage, Merriam Webster's Dictionary, and many other documenters of English Grammar don't have your problems with it (particularly in situations where it sounds much better), why do you?

[wiganwagonwheelworks]

because OP is a prescriptivist? (Just a guess...)

[EBearhug]

I don't even know what that means.
I think it means that they are using smaller inner tubes, so you can wrap the same number of sheets round within a smaller diameter of the entire roll, and can therefore pack more rolls into a lorry.

But yeah, I'd rather it was fewer. There are worse grammatical sins, though. (Yes, I mean you, colleague who says "could of".)

[Tuhlulah]

Wigan -also RIP possessive apostrophe.

[wiganwagonwheelworks]

possessive apostrophe's RIP

[Tuhlulah]

I corrected DS's homework a few weeks ago. He'd written that someone was 'hung', which I corrected to 'hanged'. He took great pleasure in showing me his teacher's 'correction' -she changed it back to 'hung'. So I checked it with Oxford English, and Oxford Editor's Dictionary, and it seems you can use both. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

[wiganwagonwheelworks]

I like it. Permissive prescriptivism.....

[Tuhlulah]

Would that make possessive individualism a cult for those of us who know how to use the possessive apostrophe? Or would it be where only one person could correctly use it?

[wiganwagonwheelworks]

It will end up a strange cult for those of us left clinging on. We can meet in grocers' shops (note the many grocers please) correcting the signs. Carrot's here we come...

[EweHaveGoatToBeKiddin]

Oh, i feel very educated by this thread. i've never really differentiated them. I always thought they meant the same thing...

So for things you can't actually count, you'd use less.
And for things you can count, you'd use fewer.

So...

"I have fewer spaghetti hoops than Sam."

"Sam has less sense than me."

Got it!

[wiganwagonwheelworks]

[brainwashed]

This is one of my mil's bugbears. I used to struggle with which to use,but being sick of being corrected by my mil in a smug manner, I looked it up one day and now can use less/fewer correctly. I am educating the rest of my family on the rule...no more smug mil!

[Tee2072]

I haven't actually seen the advert, is that what it means?

Then, really, it should be Same Luxury, Fewer Trees.

[Tuhlulah]

Wigan, there may be too few of us to meet in grocery stores; where do you live where you still have grocers' shops anyway?

So sea you in a telefone bocks if theirs less than for of us.

[Tuhlulah]

Tee2072 -am I being dense? Same luxury - More trees?

[CJCregg]

It's not really alliterative anyway, is it? 'Same Luxury' doesn't alliterate.

They could have had 'Finest Luxury, Fewer Lorries' - now that would have been correct and rather neatly alliterative

[CJCregg]

Or 'Same Luxury, less carbon monoxide poisoning'

'Same luxury, smaller footprint'

G'is a job, Tesco, I'll sort it for you

[Blankiefan]

Complain! I did - about six months ago. They called me back and said they'd pass on the feedback ; clearly they don't care!!