Re: precedence for ReplaceAll?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg110769] Re: precedence for ReplaceAll?
- From: AES <siegman at stanford.edu>
- Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2010 06:03:45 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <i0pc4f$jtj$1@smc.vnet.net>
Well, just so both Harvard and MIT graduates can do right in the future, here's what the dictionary that comes with Mac OS X says: USAGE Fewer versus less: Strictly speaking, the rule is that fewer, the comparative form of few, is used with words denoting people or countable things (: fewer members; | fewer books; | fewer than ten contestants). Less, on the other hand, is used with mass nouns, denoting things that cannot be counted ( | less money; | less music). In addition, less is normally used with numbers ( | less than 10,000) and with expressions of measurement or time ( | less than two weeks; | less than four miles away). But to use less with count nouns, as in | less people or | less words, is incorrect in standard English. [The rules of correct English are apparently nearly as complex, arcane, and inconsistent as those of correct Mathematica.]