Less/ fewer... argh

[Hex]

Normally I am very happy with distinguishing between less and fewer (uncountable/ countable -- easy peasy), but I've got myself stuck on this sentence:

That was one less generous hand to feed us.

(I know the language is a bit strange -- there are reasons for that, and not only that it's a first draft -- exciting new wip! woo!).

Hands are countable so it should be "fewer" but that sounds wrong. I think. Is it something to do with the "That was one..." or am I wrong and it should be "fewer" in spite of the way it sounds in my head?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'm not going to be helpful at all. I think "fewer" would be the correct word -- and it would grate on me in the sentence if you used it.

I think you need to rewrite that sentence from scratch.

 

[Hex]

Nyagh. Thanks, Teresa.

I wonder if it's the jangle between 'fewer' and 'generous' that makes it sound weird.

 

[Brian G Turner]

"Generous" seems to me to be the cause of the problems. Superfluous word for this sentence? It's not like feeding others tends to be a selfish act.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

At the moment it reads like the hand is less generous, not that there is one fewer hand, if that makes sense?

 

[Hex]

Thank you, guys

I've decided the whole sentence is superflous in context, but in my pursuit of justification for the twitchy feeling 'one fewer hand' gives me I discovered this page:

"One fewer" or "one less"?

which was interesting (and suggests there's a bit of language absorption difference between the US and UK, too).

This bit was especially interesting:

The Grammar Logs considers the example “there is one fewer student” and says: “we use “less” with uncountable quantities and “fewer” with countable. You really can’t count one student. Well, you can count him or her, but “one student” cannot be pluralized (forget cloning!), so “one student” is a non-count noun. This means we want “less” in that sentence.”

 

[HareBrain]

Urgh ... my brain isn't firing on all cylinders at the moment, but shouldn't it be "one fewer students", or "one student fewer"?

 

[Hex]

Self-inflicted, I hope.

I don't know (clearly) but "one fewer students" feels kind of odd.

 

[HareBrain]

I know it feels odd (which is why I'd use "one student fewer", which is definitely correct, in formal writing), but if "one fewer" is the quantity and "student/s" the thing that's being counted, then if there were originally ten students, there would still be more than one, so "student" would still have to be plural. (And in the absence of numbers you'd treat it as plural.)

Whereas with "one student fewer" the whole phrase is the quantity.

(Edit: is it just me, or are "student" and "fewer", when you think about it -- I mean, when you really, really think about it -- really weird-looking words?)

 

[Boneman]

'Fewer' is... once you've read it 8 times it makes no sense at all.

I'm with springs: That was one less generous hand to feed us.

That was one 'less-generous' hand to feed us: ie there's an amount of hands to feed us, but one of them is less generous.

Or: someone's killed one of the generous hands so there's one less than before.

Which is your intention?

 

[Hex]

I've deleted the sentence but the context was a fisherman's death.

"[I thought of] all the days Sam brought us something of their catch -- and not even the smallest. That was one less generous hand to feed us."

I get what you guys are saying about the sentence in general, especially "generous" -- I know it's ambiguous on its own but is that what's causing the 'less'/ 'fewer' confusion?

I think the issue may actually be whether one hand can be plural. Having said that, I've been over this so many times I can't hear the language any more.

 

[Boneman]

"[I thought of] all the days Sam brought us something of their catch -- and not even the smallest. We'd lost one of the [most?] generous hands that fed us."

 

[Mouse]

For what it's worth, I wouldn't have batted an eye at that sentence.

 

[Hex]

Thanks for the suggestions. I really do appreciate them but right now I'm finding a new someone's voice (she typed, pretentiously) and I don't hear her speaking like that. It's easier to lose the sentence than to twist it into something she wouldn't say. "Lost" is too emotive, in the circumstances.

And thanks, Mouse