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According to this article retail giant Tesco have bowed to pressure from grammarians (and pedants like us) and removed the ‘”10 items or less” signs from the aisles of their supermarkets, hich is great news. We applaud.
But not so fast, because instead, they have replaced them with signs declaring “Up to 10 items”. What?! Why not “10 items or fewer”, which is the correct usage? Because, according to a spokesperson for the Plain English Campaign, “Saying up to 10 items is easy to understand and avoids any debate.” What debate? It’s “fewer” not “less”. Simple as that. And anyway, what’s wrong with debate?
As a literary fiction magazine, Litro would like to stand by our brothers-in-grammatical-arms and say, “NO!” to Tesco’s mealy-mouthed, fence-sitting attitude. To get everyone in the mood, here’s a video of everyone’s favourite indie grammarian song, “Oxford Comma” by Vampire Weekend. Loving that guitar solo two minutes in.
By Julie Palmer-Hoffman
