Tag: common writing mistakes

Fewer vs. Less

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fewer-vs-less
Above, my friend and I show off our paintings after a recent paint night. If we had used fewer colors, we would have used less paint. Use “fewer” for countable items, and “less” for one, mass item.

It’s research paper season in my world right now, and as I read page after page of student work, one mistake keeps surfacing: confusion regarding when to use “fewer” and when to use “less.”

Most of the time, people probably aren’t even aware that they are getting it wrong. After all, saying something like, “I should have eaten less cookies” really doesn’t sound that bad (unless you know better, which you are about to). But it is wrong. What the regretful victim of the sweet tooth should have said was: “I should have eaten fewer cookies.” Now, if she had been talking about cake, she would have been correct in her use of “less.” “I should have eaten less cake” is correct.

So why is “I should have eaten less cake” correct where “I should have eaten less cookies” is incorrect? Well, whereas “cookies” are several, countable items, “cake” is one, mass item. If you eat less cake or less pie, you eat fewer slices of cake or pie. The cake and the pie are singular, mass items, but the slices are individual, countable pieces.

Basically, you use “fewer” when discussing a number of individual items that you can count–crackers, cookies, hours, vegetables. You use “less” when discussing one item that can be larger or smaller in size.

In addition to our paint night, we enjoyed a walk in a nearby park. If we had walked fewer miles, we would have seen less scenery.
In addition to our paint night, we enjoyed a walk in a nearby park. If we had walked fewer miles, we would have seen less scenery.

For example, when you have fewer minutes, you have less time. Time is one thing made up of a bunch of minutes.

Similarly, when you eat fewer pieces of cake, you eat less cake. The cake is one baked good made up of several pieces.

For one final example: If you eat fewer meals, you might eat less food. Food is not a countable item, but the number of meals you eat in a day is.

Hopefully, you now have fewer questions and less confusion about the English language! 😉

A part vs. Apart

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For some reason, the confusion between “apart” and “a part” has been surfacing in my professional and personal life with increased frequency over the course of the last week or so. I noticed it in at least a third of the essay tests I finished grading just before winter break began, and it has appeared on my Facebook feed more often than I’d like to remember. Due to its recent, rampant presence, I thought the error merited some attention. Let’s get the difference between “a part” and “apart” all sorted out.

When “apart” appears as one word, it is an adverb that means “separate,” as in, “Take the toy apart” or “His feet were spread far apart from each other” or “He lives apart from his parents.”

When “a part” appears as two words, you have an article (“a”) and a noun (“part”), as in “one piece,” or one involved party.

The most common error I see is the use of the adverb “apart” where what is actually needed is the article “a” and the noun “part.” For example, one might write, “I am so glad to be apart of your special day,” when what one really means to say is, “I am so glad to be a part of your special day.”

If you think of it in this context, “He stood apart from the crowd” means something very different than “He stood, a part of the crowd.” In the former, he stands out. In the latter, he blends in.

Apart

A Part
Adverb Article paired with noun
Means: separate Means: one piece
He lives apart from his parents. He is a part of the high school band.

Cord vs. Chord

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This is a story of mistaken identity.

Today in class, my students were working in groups, playing a review game to prepare for their upcoming test on John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. The game platform, called Kahoot! (I learned about it at a VDOE conference and highly recommend it; the students love it), is online, so I had procured one of our school’s mobile laptop carts for my students’ use. As I was passing out the machines, I heard one of my students exclaim, “They used the wrong cords!” I had used the cart the previous block, and noticed nothing about the cords that seemed out of the ordinary. I examined the tangled mass of chargers in the cart to see if I could discern the problem.

“What do you mean, they used the wrong cords?” I asked, addressing no one in particular. “They look fine to me.”

The same student who had proclaimed the error in the first place explained, “They used the music chords!”

Still puzzled, I continued to wordlessly examine the charger cords in the cart.

“I mean,” I said, “all the laptops seem to be charging just fine. How are these the wrong cords?”

“Cord” without an “H” refers to an electrical cord, such as is part of a charger for, say, a laptop. “Chord” with an “H” refers to musical chords, as in, “Play me a few chords, Maestro!”

After another minute or two of beffudlement, one of my students realized where the confusion originated: I was looking at the actual cords in the cart; my student was reading a sign on the front of the cart, which said, in part:

“Please be sure all chords are neatly stored inside the cart.”

Ah! My student had noticed and was perturbed by something that would, had I noticed the sign in the first place, also have perturbed me: the misspelling of a homophone.

“Cord” without an “H” refers to an electrical cord, such as is part of a charger for, say, a laptop. “Chord” with an “H” refers to musical chords, as in, “Play me a few chords, Maestro!”

No doubt the fact that the student who pointed this mistake out is one of our band students played a role in his quick discernment of the error. Still, as his English teacher, I was proud of his sharp eye.