All rules

"Less" with a countable plural

less-for-feweron by default (info)English

"Less" before a countable plural, as in "less errors" for "fewer errors"

Example

Flagged
The new parser reports less errors on long files.
What chaff prints
1:24 "less errors" counts things; write "fewer errors"
Fixed
The new parser reports fewer errors on long files.
What chaff prints
no finding

How to fix

Use "fewer" before a countable plural ("less errors" becomes "fewer errors"). To speak of an amount, use a word for the amount ("less work").

Why it matters

Written English uses "less" for an amount and "fewer" for a count ("less time", "fewer errors"). "Less errors" and "less people" are common in speech, but a formal reader takes them as a slip. Only a "less" directly before a noun that reads clearly as a countable plural is reported. "Less" after a noun or a number means "minus" ("revenue less costs") and is not reported.

What it does not flag

Mass nouns ("less time", "less work"), "less" before an adjective ("less experienced staff"), "less" meaning minus ("revenue less costs", "$500 less fees"), "less than", and nouns spelled alike in both numbers ("less data") are not reported.

Turning it off or relaxing it

Silence this one spot (in the document)
<!-- stet: less-for-fewer — reason -->
Relax it for the team (the reason is kept as a comment in chaff.yaml)
npx chaffjs relax less-for-fewer --why "reason"
Turn it off for the team (chaff.yaml)
rules: less-for-fewer: off
Technical details
Layer
L3
Status
stable
Severity
info
Languages
en
Suited to
business, technical, blog, legal, docs, academic, literature, speech
Reads from the document
pos

Levels

Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).

strictwarning
normalinfo
relaxedinfo

This rule has no limit to count to. A level sets how a finding is marked: relaxed keeps the finding and marks it a step lower.

By genre

Runs by default in
technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper
Turned off by the genre in
literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play, speech/address, speech/transcript

Genres

Message

"{word}" counts things; write "{suggestion}"

Rewrite depth (chaff fix-plan --depth): light — words and sentences; the structure and the voice stay

This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/less-for-fewer.yaml