10 Items or Less? NO!

Grammarians don't write express lane signs.

Walk into any grocery story (except Giant) and you'll see signs that say, "10 Items or Less." They should say, "10 Items or Fewer."

Why? Because you can count items. Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves. Count them.

With regard to the grocery store, they might be Cornish hens, but you could still count them, and if you were to put three on the checkout belt, you'd better not put more than seven of anything else on it. Not in these here parts anyhow.

With the impending ice storm, you run out to the store for bread, milk, and toilet paper. You reach the checkout and unload the gallon of milk onto the conveyor belt.
Rather, you mean to, but it slips out of your hand and bursts open on the floor. Milk seeps out, ounce by liquid white ounce. Now there is less milk in the jug and more on the floor. If you were to count the ounces, you would have fewer ounces of milk, but less milk. Get it?

You then request a book of stamps. To replace the milk, you ask? No, although that's a perfectly logical guess, but not quite where I'm headed with this grammar lesson.

The book of stamps has twenty stamps. Woops! Last time I checked, twenty stamps is roughly ten more than the ten items allotted in the express lane. Oh, you say, it's just one book, so you're okay.

Next time I'm in the express lane with ten items or fewer, I think I'll kindly (smugly?) tell the lady in front of me--the one buying a four-pack of Starbucks Frappucino and a box of powdered donut holes-- to move to the regular checkout lane. I just know from a quick count that there are more than six munchkins in that box.

On the other hand, if there's a man in front of me with a dozen roses, I'll smile and think, "How romantic." More flowers, more love. Fewer flowers, less love. (Not that I've EVER thought about love in such quantifiable terms or anything.)