Less is More

I have a special request from Kate, who writes:

"Please address Gardasil's annoying 'one less' slogan. For the love of all things holy, I will not be one less woman with cervical cancer! I will be one fewer! I'd rather get genital warts than buy into that grammatically incorrect company!"

As Kate so aptly points out, Gardasil, a vaccine against HPV (a virus that causes genital warts and has been linked to cervical cancer) has been running some pretty offensive ads on TV lately. While Gardasil seeks to protect young girls from a potentially life-threatening condition, it also inoculates them with poor grammar in the form of its "One Less" slogan. Although it's admittedly less catchy, the slogan, indeed, should be "One Fewer."

"Less" versus "fewer" represents a common grammar pitfall with a simple explanation. "Less" modifies mass nouns, and "fewer" modifies nouns you can count. For example, you would say, "There are fewer eggs in this basket" because you can count how many eggs are in the basket. However, you would say, "There is less sunlight today" because you can't count "sunlights."

Perhaps because of its brevity, "less" often sneaks in where "fewer" should be, such as in the "10 items or less" line at the grocery store. (If you can count the items in your basket, it should be "10 items or fewer.") In Gardasil's case, the number of women with cervical cancer is countable, and therefore, if you are not among that number, you will be "one fewer."