Cosmetic Grammar Problem...

Could I suggest a comestic change? There’s a grammar error, in my opinion, in the puzzle requirements. It should be “fewer” rather than “less” pairs. [5:28 GMT]

Not exactly a problem, Dull (man). After all, it’s not obvious.

Ahem… Dull is my surname. Please don’t taunt with “(man)”.

Please justify your comment that “it’s not obvious”.

If you don’t understand the grammar rule about cardinality as it relates to “less” and “fewer” then I recommend: http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/gr…. Surely we agree that pairs can be counted, right?

If you mistyped and meant that the meaning was obvious (vice not obvious), I would understand, having already said that this issue is cosmetic. But surely presentation and style are important to the project. You’d submit a journal article with as few grammar errors as you could, right?

Thanks for the consideration.

Less, in this case, can be used correctly. This is an informal context; it’s not serious science.

I challenge you to provide any top-shelf source that says a published work like ‘ete’ can ignore that rule of grammar.

Wait a minute. “Fewer” would only be used in third-person. The text of the limitations is in second-person, so “less” is correct here.

Frank + Freywa: I’m going to jump dangerously into the fray of a spirited grammar debate :slight_smile: and say that (judging from the Oxford Dictionary grammar guidelines), ‘fewer’ appears to the better option here. We’ll fix it up. (Bug #545).

@ Adrien: Thank you!
@Freywa: No, person does not effect the cardinality. Again, I challenge you to provide a source for your claims.

This has been fixed (by Sebon). Thanks!