YALP!

[gnomi]

[Poll #1067958]

Comments

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

Actually, I might say no less, but only if it's a typical quantity like 40 hours a week. Or if I were sloppy.

[glishara.livejournal.com]

I don't think I would ever use that construction, actually. I use "no more than" a lot, but I'd always use "at least" in that construction. Both those sound awkward and wrong to me.

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

It's sunny here!

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Oh, and? Is this prompted by that "one less" commercial for the cervical cancer vaccine? Because that commercial bugs me and I end up yelling "one fewer!" at the TV... ;-)

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

I was always taught that fewer is for items that could be counted individually, while less is for indeterminate quanities. The mnemonic I came up with for my own use is "Fewer farmers, less wheat."

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the rule. But my question arose because people can look at hours worked in the aggregate as well as in the individual, so I was interested in which way people split on this one.

[madfilkentist]

Hours are a continuous quantity rather than a discrete one, so I chose "no less."

[cellio]

I'm not real happy about either option, because while I fully understand the difference between counting nouns and mass nouns, I'm not sure which one hours of work is. If I need to convey this I dodge with "at least".

[fizzixrat.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I would probably say, "He works a minimum of eighty hours per week," although I'd be thinking, "He works [80,168] hours per week."

One of my majors was mathematics. ;)

Of course, I'd probably add some comments railing against the insufficiently enforced eighty hour rule for medical residents.

[half-double.livejournal.com]

Yay! because I love rain. Boo! because sometimes Tangleroot leaks. :-(

One of my high school English teachers boycotted the local supermarket because the signs on their express lanes said "15 items or less." Of course, he also smacked himself in the chest every time anyone used the indefinite you. He was not well.

[queendeb.livejournal.com]

ohhhhhh miss steiff.