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less and fewer

there are less people here than i was expecting

there should be fewer people in this pub .It's too crowded

รบกวน 2 ประโยค ทำไมใช้ less กับ fewer คะ เมื่อ people เป็นนามนับไม่ได้ น่าจะใช้ less (ลอกมาจากใน web คะ)

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Permalink Reply by Ake on September 24, 2015 at 4:55pm

เรื่องนี้ถ้าตอบแบบตามหลักการคือ less people ควรจะเป็น fewer people ถึงจะถูก แต่ประโยค "There are less people here than I was expecting". อยู่ในรูปเปรียบเทียบ คือมี than อยู่ ดังนั้นจะเข้าข่ายว่าใช้ less ได้เหมือนกัน แต่ถ้าคนที่เข้มงวดเรื่องไวยกรณ์จริง ๆ ก็จะบอกว่าผิด ประโยครูปแบบนี้มีอธิบายอยู่ในส่วนหนึ่งของหนังสือ "The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language" ที่มีรายละเอียดตามนี้นะครับ :

The relation between less and fewer is fairly complex. In non-count singulars only less is possible: Kim has less/*fewer money than Pat. In plural NPs we have:
[17]
i. She left less than ten minutes ago.
ii. Less/Fewer than thirty of the students had voted.
iii. He made no less/fewer than fifteen mistakes.
iv. You pass if you make ten mistakes or less/?fewer.
v. He took less/*fewer pains to convince us than I’d expected.
vi. He made fewer/less mistakes than the others.

Both [i] and [ii] have than + numeral. In [i] ten minutes expresses an amount of time rather than a number of individuated units, and in such cases fewer is virtually impossible—just as few would be in a comparison of equality: She left as little/*few as ten minutes ago. Similarly with We paid less than thirty dollars for it; She’s less than forty years old; We were going at less than ten miles an hour.

In [ii] we are concerned with countable individuals and little cannot be used in a comparison of equality (*as little as thirty of the students); nevertheless, for inequality less is more common than fewer in this construction. The same applies with percentages: Less/Fewer than 30% of the students had voted. Construction

[iii] has the comparative form following no: though the interpretation is count plural, less is here again more common than fewer.

Construction [iv] has or after a numeral: less is the usual form here, with fewer quite marginal; this construction is widely seen in supermarkets, with the fast checkout labelled eight items or less, or the like. In [v] pains is plural but non-count rather than count (we can’t ask how many pains he took), and here only less is possible.

Finally in [vi] (as also in [15ii]) the comparative occurs directly with a count plural noun: both forms are found, but less is subject to quite strong prescriptavist disapproval, so that fewer is widely preferred in formal style, and many speakers in informal style too.

[Usage manuals are divided on the issue of less vs. fewer. Some uncompromisingly brand such forms as less mistakes as incorrect, while others note that though commonly condemned they are often used by speakers of Standard English. Before the Early Modern English period (beginning around 1500) more was restricted to non-count NPs with moe used as the comparative of many. At that time less was used along with fewer for count NPs, but came to be stigmatised and quite rare in this use: it is only within the last generation or so that it has become frequent. The current revival seems inexorable, given the strong pressure of analogy with more.]

(แหล่งข้อมูล: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language ที่ปรากใน http://english.stackexchange.com/ )

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จะเห็นได้ว่าโครงสร้างของประโยค less people จะเหมือนกับข้อ "vi" ซึ่งสรุปไว้ว่ามีการใช้ทั้ง 2 แบบ แต่ถ้าแบบที่ใช้กันแพร่หลายกันจริง ๆ ควรจะเป็น fewer มากกว่าครับ (ลองดูข้ออื่น ๆ ก็น่าสนใจนะครับ)