Fred Graf is absolutely correct that something got transposed in the last paragraph of my original column on number and amount, fewer and less. Then I wrote that a simple way to tell which word to use is to look for an s or es. “If it's there (lunches, bills, vandals), you want amount and fewer. If it's not (food, cash, damage), you want number and less.”
In correcting my error last week, the Insiders got it wrong, for the transposition was not where they believed it was. They wrote: “if there is an s or es at the end of a word (lunches, bills, vandals), you want number and less. If there isn't (food, cash, damage), you want amount and fewer.
Third time's a charm. Food, cash, and damage equals amount and less. Lunches, bills, and vandals = number and fewer. I hope that I will be joined by Mr. Graf and others in passing back the chastisement to the Insiders.
