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There are less cars today.
Fewer.
Why do you have to be so corrective?
I think the word you’re looking for is “pedantic.”
For most of my career at the Free Press, I’ve been a copy editor or production editor. Which means worrying about such questions as, “Is it like or such as?”; “Is it fewer or less?”; “Is ‘comprised of’ correct?”
(The answers, in order: like is a simile, so shouldn’t be used to precede a list. The examples that follow aren’t similar to, they’re merely examples. Fewer is for countable items, less is for non-countable quantities: there are fewer cars, but there’s less water. No, it’s not correct: composed of or comprises is correct: the guest list comprises such people as the lieutenant-governor, the premier and the minister of health.)
Back in the 1990s, we’d frequently receive missives from a group called the Raging Grammarians pointing out grammatical errors in the paper. Interestingly, most if not all of these missives contained obvious grammatical errors themselves. But I digress.
(Charles Krupa / The Associated Press files)
Why is this discussion part of a business newsletter? Because in business, accuracy and grammar are probably even more important than in a newspaper. Someone reading a newspaper and recognizing an error in grammar probably just rolls the eyes and moves on.
Someone finding errors in a business proposal probably starts to question the writer’s ability.
That can be devastating.
If people can’t get a proposal, or an email or a letter correct, can they necessarily be trusted with other, more critical details?
It takes less than a half-minute to look up most grammar questions. For example, I interrupted writing this newsletter to pose the “comprised of or composed of” question: the answer, including the time it took to type the question, was before me in 10 seconds.
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Knowing which questions to ask, however, might be the trick. There are a number of applications that can help. Even Pages, the Mac application I use to write this newsletter, will flag certain grammatical errors. Outlook, a common email application, has similar ability.
It doesn’t flag, however, the error I find most grating: would of, could of, should of… the holy trinity of grammatical regret.
Such applications also likely won’t trigger notifications on the correct spelling of the incorrect word, such as they’re, their and there.
The world of email and social media seems to have numbed society to the benefits of precision in writing. In business, however, it can mean the difference between success and failure.
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