Less Is More. Or Is It Fewer?

When I get picky about the nuances of words, some of my friends ask if my cable is out. Others question whether I'm off my meds. Hey, I'm a copywriter, people pay me to know this stuff. Okay, maybe they don't pay me to talk about it ad nauseum, but that hasn't stopped me yet.

Today's topic: less and fewer. My beloved AP Stylebook describes the distinction this way:

                   "In general, (I love it when they add a disclaimer right off the bat),
                   use fewer for individual items, less for bulk or quantity."

In other words, if you can count something, say rolls of toilet paper, use the word "fewer," as in "I really must start using fewer rolls of toilet paper." However if you talk about toilet paper in bulk, you would use the word "less," as in "I really must start using less toilet paper."

Now that you are more confused than ever, pick the correct answer from the choices below:

(a) Less than 10 people will read this stupid blog post.
(b) Fewer than 10 people will read this stupid blog post.
(c) Who cares?

The answer is (b), people are individuals you can count in this example, so you use fewer. Guess I'd better go see if the cable is back on.      

Call me an AP Stylista

Nobody who ever saw me cranking out copy on a typical workday would ever call me a fashionista. In the absence of the civilized wardrobe demands of a client meeting or Skype conference, it’s not uncommon for me to rummage around on the floor of my closet and grab the same shorts and top I wore yesterday or the day before. “Hello, my name is Malia, and I once wore the same shoes 25 days in a row.” At least it wasn’t underwear. 

Don’t tell Tide®, but copywriters don’t do much to work up a sweat. We have been known to pant and slobber under deadlines, but it usually dries clear on clothing, even though drool would clearly qualify as “What Not to Wear.”

Though I’m not slavish to style, I am to AP Style, outlined in all its glorious and fabulous detail in The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, marking its 60^th anniversary with its 2013 print edition. The big news in recent years included "website," anointed as one word with no cap or space, followed by "email", forever destined to be written with no big E or hyphen. With those heady editorial decisions, I couldn’t wait to see what AP Style had in store for 2013. Drum roll please. Health care is now officially two words. I’ve written it as one word for at least 15 years, so I’m going to need some serious electroshock therapy to break the habit.

What’s by far the biggest AP Style violation clients make when they recklessly change my precious copy? They flagrantly use postal code abbreviations (NC) instead of AP Style abbreviations (N.C.).  I can feel myself foaming at the mouth just thinking about it. Sure hope it will dry clear.

The Long and Short of It

If you believe Yahoo Answers, there’s a sentence in Les Misérables that is 823 words long. I can’t verify this allegation because I dozed off between word 96 and word 97.

Since I make my living as a copywriter, people who often go by the title C.D. “creative director,” or more accurately “creative dictator,” want my sentences to be as short as possible. My ad headlines have to be truncated to the point of being limbless.  If a copywriter fights off the temptation to write in paragraphs and uses bullet points instead, so much the better.

After I got used to bullet points shooting my creativity at point blank range, along came websites to engage their spinnerets, trap my pithy ruminations and devour them. Websites are all about clicking, not reading. I get it, but what I don’t get is why some sick puppy came up with the idea of trying to say something worthwhile in 140 characters? I’d give anything to see Victor Hugo try and write a tweet, wouldn’t you?

Don't Re: Me

Don’t RE: Me

I innocently open my inbox.  The subject line of the first new e-mail reads Re: Re: Re: Re: The second one also seems to stutter: FW: FW: FW:  The next sound you hear is me screaming.  Why can’t people write email subject lines that give poor inundated recipients a clue as to what the subject is? Or may be? Or could be? 

I know, I know.  We writers are a little pedantic and twisted, probably from too much time sequestered and staring at an evil, mocking, blank screen, secretly programmed in C++, or B negative, or something ideated (!) by some hacker techie so that the mere sight of it instantly causes writer’s block.

Still, c’mon people, be reasonable.  If you want me to have a prayer of going back and finding your email sometime in the next century, do not, I repeat, do not use this cryptic description in the subject line: “Re: interesting…”

Lots of things are interesting (the fact that earthworms are hermaphrodites, for example), but you’d have to agree that dual-sexed worms have nothing to do with me finding your email and responding to an assignment in, like, 14.2 seconds.  Could you please just make the subject line revealing/meaningful?  Pretty please?  With stevia on it?      

Re: Thank you.