20 Items or Less
I’ve been told that I should be less judgmental about bad grammar. “Don’t you mean I should be fewer judgmental?” I reply.
This sign is in Wal-Mart, by the way. Wal-Mart was where we had the idea of launching Wordsplosion!
Photo by crazytales562 @ Flickr
Wordsploded by Mark
September 24th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
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I have an English degree and work as a proofreader, so it’s my job to point out grammatical problems and typos. However, I’ve found that doing it too often and being too picky gets annoying for those around me (and at times myself). Sometimes I just smile, nod, and go on my merry way. Some things (like fewer/less) seem to have made it into the vernacular and are widely accepted, much to the chagrin of grammar lovers. I’ve come to peace with that, though. Haha.
mel
24 Sep 08 at 4:21 pm
“X items or less” has been around since the dawn of big Safeway-like grocery stores, so you can’t really fault them on the grammer. What you can fault them on is the fact that there is no such thing as “Speedy” when when 3 people in front of you have 20 items each. That’s what I thought was funny about the sign. I usually skip the “express” lines because 1 person with 40 items is always faster than 4 people with 10 items each.
Darth Curt
24 Sep 08 at 5:30 pm
Language Log has had a few things to say about less vs. fewer:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003775.html
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=557
Steven
24 Sep 08 at 5:35 pm
The only grocery store I’ve ever seen “x items or fewer” in is Meijer, which mostly has stores in the U.S. Midwest.
Paul Szewczyk
24 Sep 08 at 7:32 pm
Actually, the sentence is implied as being “20 Items, Or Less Than 20 Items” which is perfectly acceptable grammar, and people should stop picking on it all the time and find something new.
I agree with Curt that the real joke is the suggestion that 20 items could possibly create an “express lane”.
GuanoLad
24 Sep 08 at 8:31 pm
The use of ‘less’ here has been around since before Shakespeare and there is nothing wrong with it. Only in the 19th century did prescriptivists suddenly turn on it and since then they’ve been waging a ridiculous battle against it.
eg
24 Sep 08 at 8:36 pm
This is my favorite.
Cassie
24 Sep 08 at 8:57 pm
The so-called express lanes seem to be the ones most popular with people buying cigarettes and lottery tickets, in my experience. Apparently these people can’t decide what tickets and cigarettes to buy *before* they get to the cash register.
Naked Bunny with a Whip
25 Sep 08 at 12:14 am
The biggest chain in the UK (Tesco) has recently sidestepped this one by changing their signs to
“Up to 10 items”
(They used to have “10 items or less”.)
Fergus Gallagher
25 Sep 08 at 5:11 am
So are you saying that the mathematical symbol “<” should not be the “less than” symbol but should rather be the “fewer than” symbol?
This one seems really too picky.
mjparme
25 Sep 08 at 11:22 am
Here’s my idea: to qualify for the “speedy” lane, you have to pass a time trial. You have to get the items out of your cart quickly, swipe your card and sign or enter your pin before the items have finished being scanned. And you have to vacate the area immediately after the transaction has closed. And yes, it should be limited to ten items. What also kills me is when the cashier in the “speedy” lane is a slow elderly person.
Mark
25 Sep 08 at 1:16 pm
As a math/science teacher, I think I can lend some explanation to mjparme’s point. In math we define ‘less than’ as something to describe abstract values. The numbers are mostly meaningless and can take on any value, even negative.
As soon as you compare two tangible values, you use the word ‘fewer’. That’s why you never use that word when dealing with negative numbers. And why it’s practically absent from math books.
Remember, in Shakespeare’s time the language was quite different, especially the language of math. In fact, the equals sign had only been invented a few years before his birth. You can imagine that certain descriptors would change as needed.
Making language better define a concept should be a welcome thing.
infinitewell
25 Sep 08 at 3:46 pm
“Actually, the sentence is implied as being “20 Items, Or Less Than 20 Items” which is perfectly acceptable grammar….”
Ummm, actually, GuanoLad, it would still be “20 Items, or Fewer Than 20 Items”. The word “less” is only used when the concept can’t be enumerated. As the dad of a friend once said, you’d ask for less sausage (as a non-numerical concept), but fewer sausages.
Tree
30 Sep 08 at 1:02 pm
Amen!
Maria
12 Jan 09 at 11:55 am
omg!!!! i love this. i pointed out to a friend that “20 items or less” was incorrect, but it just so happened that the cashier at walmart was suppose to go to school to be a english major but didnt….ha! well….she said to me that i was wrong and that the sign was correct….hahahaha. so funny
made me laugh. and a little mad.
logan michelle
18 Jul 09 at 9:43 pm
my bad… an english teacher
logan michelle
18 Jul 09 at 9:44 pm