A puzzle that might have fitted well in the Quiptic slot, though with a couple of quirky “subtractive” clues. (However, I see that some commenters one the Guardian site found it challenging.. ah well.) Thanks to Anto.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1 | GROWN-UP | Cultivate witticism about being adult (5-2) GROW (cultivate) + reverse of PUN |
||||||
| 5 | BITCOIN | Currency is part I contributed to swindle (7) BIT (part) + I in CON (swindle) |
||||||
| 9 | PETIT | Small piece of advice about way to reassure your dog? (5) To reassure your dog you might PET IT. The feminine form petite is used in English, but I think this version should have an indication that it’s French |
||||||
| 10 | NAUSEATES | USA Senate carve-up turns one’s stomach (9) (USA SENATE)* |
||||||
| 11 | E-PASSPORT | Earl, unable to answer question, left to get some identification (1-8) E[arl] + PASS [(I’m) unable to answer] + PORT (left) |
||||||
| 12 | FEWER | Less often confused with it when counting (5) Cryptic definition, referring the distinction between “less” and “fewer” that some people get very agitated about |
||||||
| 13 | RUINS | Heads of redbrick universities institute new standards for dilapidated buildings (5) First letters of Redbrick Universities Institute New Standards |
||||||
| 15 | ARCH RIVAL | Chief competitor, if losing run, would be matter of record (4,5) If we lose the R[un] from this then we’d end up with ARCHIVAL, relating to record |
||||||
| 18 | FEEL GREAT | Left eager to get transformed and be happy (4,5) (LEFT EAGER)* |
||||||
| 19 | SPROG | Issue dealt with in Pilgrim’s Progress (5) Hidden in pilgrim’S PROGress |
||||||
| 21 | NIGHT | Close temperature when sun goes down (5) NIGH (close) + T |
||||||
| 23 | SANGFROID | RAF’s doing badly, showing coolness under pressure (4,5) (RAF’S DOING)* |
||||||
| 25 | GESTATION | Post on half of wage when things are developing (9) [wa]GE + STATION (a post) |
||||||
| 26 | CRIME | Giving lip in church is a sin (5) RIM (lip) in CE |
||||||
| 27 | EGOISTS | Selfish people say Oscar is extremely tedious (7) E.G. (say) + O[scar] + IS + T[ediou]S |
||||||
| 28 | SPLAYED | Moved quickly to protect place when stretched (7) LAY (to place) in SPED |
||||||
| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | GAP YEAR | Constantly talk equipment with Spooner in period before university (3,4) Spoonerism of “yap gear” |
||||||
| 2 | OSTRACISE | CIA stores criminal blacklist (9) (CIA STORES)* |
||||||
| 3 | NOTES | Records found when breaking up sofa? (5) Breaking up “sofa” gives “so fa”, two notes (after do re mi) |
||||||
| 4 | PANTO DAME | Criticise book about father being camp mother at Christmas (5,4) PAN (criticise) + DA (father, in dialect) in TOME |
||||||
| 5 | BLUNT | Plain type of sandwich has a French filling (5) UN (French “a”) in BLT (Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich) |
||||||
| 6 | TREE FERNS | Sea birds circling coastal feature to find plants (4-5) REEF (coastal feature) in TERNS |
||||||
| 7 | ON TOW | Regular cognition women get being dragged around (2,3) Alternate letters of cOgNiTiOn + W[omen] |
||||||
| 8 | NOSTRIL | Central parts of genome system purify cells forming air passage (7) Middle letters of geNOme sySTem puRIfy ceLls |
||||||
| 14 | SIGHT GAGS | In one sense, mufflers funny things to look at (5,4) SIGHT (one of the senses) + GAGS (mufflers) |
||||||
| 16 | CO-TENANTS | Business has ten workers who share accommodation (2-7) CO (company, business) + TEN ANTS |
||||||
| 17 | VERBOSITY | Talking too much, manager almost overwhelmed by truth (9) BOS[s] (manager) in VERITY |
||||||
| 18 | FINAGLE | Trick old horse to get into line (7) NAG (old horse) in FILE (line) |
||||||
| 20 | GODSEND | Without AI, diagnosed ruptures – it’s an unexpected benefit (7) Anagram of DIAGNOSED less AI |
||||||
| 22 | GUSTO | Some plot suggestions raised, showing enthusiasm (5) Hidden in reverse of plOT SUGgestions |
||||||
| 23 | SKIPS | Dirty place in ship where dumped material stored (5) KIP (a dirty place, sometimes a brothel, in Irish slang, from kip as a cheap place to sleep) in SS (ship). More information about “kip” here. |
||||||
| 24 | FOCAL | Critical secondary characters in office come across major flaws (5) Second letters of oFfice cOme aCross mAjor fLaws |
||||||
Dnf for me. SIGHT GAGS did for me and I couldn’t parse SOFA. Tx Andrew. I shall look at ANTO differently now. This was all fair but chewy for me.
What Fuddleduddy said.
Did anyone else notice the nina across the middle row. Think of a famous Nina …
Thanks Anto and Andrew
Some lovely clues – NAUSEATES for its surface must be a contender for clue of the year! ARCH RIVAL very good too.
Held up on SPLAYED as I thought PL was the place to start with.
A DNF though – never heard KIP in that sense.
I’m one who found it a bit challenging. Many very easy clues but some that I couldn’t work out all. Nho kip as a dirty place (thanks Andrew for the link), didn’t remember SIGHT GAG as a phrase (but the only possibility from the crossers), didn’t know E-PASSPORT, and couldn’t fathom the for me deeply obscure FEWER. There were enough crossers in place to make the solution doable for me.
Favourites ARCH RIVAL, FINAGLE (lovely word), and SPROG (clever misdirection)
Thanks Anto and Andrew
Thank you Balfour@3 for pointing out the nina. Missed it as always.
Hardly the trivial solve that Andrew implies it to be. Despite being a musician, I failed to parse 3d, and had NHO ‘kip’ in this context. Also, as usual I completely failed to spot the Nina nina.
+1 for nho kip and unable to parse notes. Those bits were quite chewy for a Monday I’d say. The rest went in fairly smoothly and overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Agree with Andrew re PETIT. Also dnf, KIP just means sleep to me. Overall very enjoyable, although the difficulty of clues seemed to vary a lot. But maybe that’s just me.
Never heard of a SIGHT GAG nor PANTO DAME (a uniquely British thing?). I saw the nina but was puzzled to think of a reason for it. OK, Nina Simone — is that all?
Couldn’t fathom SKIPS, as I’ve never heard of this meaning for kip. The wordplay for NOTES eluded me too.
So a fair number of speed bumps, but otherwise it went smoothly and was enjoyed.
It seems I’m far from alone in not having heard of KIP in the sense of “dirty place”. Perhaps a pointer towards Dublin slang might have been given?
PETIT would have worked better with “poodle” instead of “dog”.
Good Monday run out.
I’m still unsure about FEWER explanation, is there a bone of contention between the difference (or not) between LESS and FEWER.
Apart from that, no issues.
Good spot Balfour @3.
Thanks both.
Re Andrew’s comment on FEWER, a colleague of mine many years ago refused to shop at his local supermarket as they wouldn’t change the ‘8 items or less’ sign. Personally, I think it is a ridiculous bit of grammar, especially since ‘more’ doesn’t suffer the same distinction.
Yes, I didn’t know ‘kip’ either and had to think a while to parse NOTES.
HIYD @13
If you can count it, FEWER is more correct – less flour, fewer eggs, for instance.
Geoff Down Under @!0. I think that is it. No obvious anniversaries of Nina Simone’s death or birth. And ‘feel great” at 18a surely too loose a connection with her classic Feeling Good. Still she was a “godsend” and I will happily welcome several earworms of her greatest songs for the rest of the day.
Also, had not heard of KIP = dirty place either, but 23d could only be SKIPS.
Muffin @15 – Thanks, I see what you mean, odd though, I would say ” I have LESS than £10′, I suppose that gramatically it should be ‘I have FEWER than £20’.
Did not know kip, or the camp mother, and couldn’t figure the whole reason for fewer, so appreciate the blog. Otherwise this was an enjoyable and rapid solve, so thanks Anto.
HoofItDonkey @13 – in UK supermarkets, before all the self-service tills, there used to be express lanes for “5 items or less”, which regularly had the pedants saying it should be “5 items or fewer”. The pedantic grammatical rule is if you can count the items fewer should be used, for an uncountable quantity, less indicates a reduced amount.
(Too slow to type on my phone, crossed by the world.)
Another who didn’t parse the sofa and had never heard the Irish use of “kip”.
Thank you Anto and Andrew.
Had SPLAYED but thought PL was the place.
Haven’t headr of KIP used in that way.
Missed the clever Nina.
Enjoyable start to the day.
Thanks both.
Nina classic repeated by 35 month-old children? (1,4,1,4,3,2,5,4,2,2,4)
Ok I’ll get my coat….
I was thinking Anto is a lot better off than me, as I only find coins when I break up the sofa. The Nina is a nice touch. Well spotted Balfour.
All a bit ‘meh’ for my taste, except a solitary tick for NOTES once I saw the gag.
Not happy with PETIT for the reasons Andrew gave.
Enjoyable puzzle. Quite tricky, took me a while to get going on this amid the many pleasant distractions of being on a canalboat for a few days.
I could not parse 3d and 28ac – I was fixated on PL = place so the parsing eluded me.
New for me: SIGHT-SAWS; KIP = dirty place (for 23d).
I did not see the Nina – haha, that is a good one!
For 23d I had SPITS. PIT as dirty place and a spit as where dumped pebbles and sand accumulate on a coastline. Not as obvious as SKIPS though perhaps.
Another who struggled with PET IT, but for a different reason it seems. With ‘piece of advice about’ being a reversal of TIP I failed to see where ET came in but entered unparsed anyway. Also failed with SKIPS and NOTES for the same reasons as many.
Thank for elucidating Andrew and thanks to Anto
I enjoyed this one a lot. Maybe ‘kip’ is more usual here in Ireland?
My one quibble is that a crime is not necessarily a sin, but that’s minor enough.
Similar issues that held me up, as people have mentioned above. An enjoyable outing overall, though.
I’m a stickler for correct use of less/fewer. I contacted the ABC in 2022 when I heard there are less potentially infectious people in isolation. They meant fewer, and in this case ended up portraying a very different meaning to what was intended. (I was taken seriously.)
I liked the clue, by the way.
Very enjoyable – I like the range of clue types. I thought PETIT, ARCH RIVAL and FEWER were particularly good. Couldn’t parse SKIPS or NOTES (clever) but I found the whole thing engaging, as I generally do with Anto’s cryptics. He’s my favourite setter.
Is there generally a like between Anto crosswords and “Nina”?
DadsLad @16:
Mississippi Goddamn
Thought this perfectly pitched for a Monday. Apart from the oft mentioned above obscurity of that meaning of Kip. If I’m allowed for a moment to drift off to another kind of pitch, my boyhood cricketing hero Colin Cowdrey was dubbed Kipper Cowdrey because of his apparent tendency to drop off to sleep in the pavilion before he went out to bat. So like others on here that would be my only prior knowledge of a meaning for the central part of 23d today…
Held up in SW corner. Couldn’t parse NOTES or FEWER, in fact had LOWER instead so my 6D is TREE LARKS!
Likewise, 23D a mystery to me. One of these puzzles that starts well but as you go down the grid, gets harder.
For those not familiar with a PANTO DAME, how lucky you are.
I got everything pretty quickly except for SKIPS. I had SPITS for that one. At least on this side of the pond a PIT is a dirty place, as in “your room is a pit—clean it up”. This works since SPITS are deposits of sand and gravel projecting into a body of water. The material was deposited there and most likely continues to be deposited there.
Thanks Andrew. I seem to be the only one who’s never heard of finagle, but it was clearly clued. Didn’t know the Irish slang word “kip” until I’d looked it up. A very satisfying Monday cryptic for me.
Thanks Anto
Thank you Anto and Andrew.
Like many others, I’d never heard of KIP for a dirty place, and I couldn’t parse SOFA.
However, now that Andrew has explained it, I see that the clue for SOFA is very clever.
A joke I once heard:
Boy: I’ve only ever had two girlfriends, but I wish it had been less. I wish it had been just you.
Girl: Oh honey, that’s very sweet! But you mean “fewer”. You wish it had been fewer.
Boy: You know, every time you correct my grammar, I love you a little bit fewer.
Didn’t know ‘kip’ in that sense, and I’m Irish. Wondered if it might be ‘tip’, but that wouldn’t work.
Chambers has SANGFROID as one word, with no alternative. Couldn’t parse NOTES or FEWER, though the answers had to be those.
Nice little piece of advice about how to reassure your dog?
Same problem as muffin@4 with SPLAYED and yet another person not knowing KIP (an Irish indicator wouldn’t have helped). Also parsed SOFA as an alternative spelling of SOLFA rather than two notes. Never mind, it was fun to do and some good surfaces: favourites FINAGLE, SANGFROID, GESTATION and BITCOIN.
There are plenty of examples where the correct use of “less” and “fewer” prevents ambiguity in a sentence, for example:
“There were fewer significant errors.”
vs.
“There were less significant errors.”
Thanks for the blog , good set of clues , seems right for a Monday with a few to think about . NOTES , ARCH RIVAL and SIGHT GAGS very neat .
Perfect timing , fewer is for quantised and less is for continuous .
‘Get agitated about’ less or fewer! So they should. Such a clunky piece of grammar when misused.
Remember ‘fewer breaths; less life”
It’s a question of quantity and amount.
This was easy in parts and far from it, in others.
I’m yet another who’d never heard of that meaning of kip, and agree with all those who reckon an indication of its being an Irish term would have helped. Ditto ditto PETIT, since it’s “petite” that’s used in English.
NOTES was an unparsed crossed-fingers entry – but then, I always have trouble with the blasted sol-fa lark, largely because there seem to be so many different accepted spellings for most of them!
(The Nina nina was very sweet: thank you Balfour for pointing it out.)
I agree with muffin @ 4 regarding NAUSEATES: a masterly clue.
Thanks Anto and Andrew
KIP wasn’t a problem but I agree with Andrew regarding PETIT. I did see the Nina and wondered if Anto has done this before, as I don’t usually look for themes or hidden things in his excellent puzzles. Don’t know why I thought of Roz, when I saw SPROGS and I happily hand back 42 to her. I agree that this was Quiptic but enjoyable as ever.
Ta Anto & Andrew.
Good start to the week with a few (not less) chewy ones. I liked PETIT (which is in all the main dictionaries as an adjective used in the law, for example PETIT larceny), FEWER when counting, and GESTATION, when things are developing. Like many I DNK the Irish kip and failed to see the SO FA and the NINA.
Thanks Anto and Andrew.
….or SPROG even with fewer/less letters?
Fewer letters taking less time to type .
I now have four sites to visit . Roman on the way to L2 to join JWST and Euclid .
The “rule about less and fewer is not straightforward. “8 is less than 9” is perfectly ok, even though 8 and 9 are quantities. When people get confused, there’s usually a reason.
A very pleasant puzzle. Favourite was SPROG which I’d never noticed in Pilgrim’s Progress before. (Ogress is also in there — an idea for another clue?)
HoofItYouDonkey @17: you would be correct to say “I have less than £10” because pounds are divisible — you might have £6.95. But if you were talking about pound coins, FEWER would be appropriate.
The Nina was brilliant! Well done Balfour for spotting it.
Many thanks Anto and Andrew.
I felt PETIT was imperfect for the same reason as others. And in addition to not knowing this sense of KIP, I’ve never encountered the expression ON TOW in the Antipodes (as opposed to ‘in tow’). At least that wasn’t a stumbling block to solving.
Kicking myself for not parsing NOTES – it seems to have eluded many here, but I don’t think it was too obscure.
I solved 23 clues, more or less.
8 apples is fewer than 9.
The number 8 is less than 9.
Don’t accept less than £5.
Don’t accept fewer than 5 answers.
Do listen to More or Fewer on Radio4.
Enjoyed it as relatively easy yet fun – though DNF. I’ve never heard of SIGHT GAGS, I couldn’t think of a suitable word to fit -a-s, and I didn’t have the will to try all letter combinations.
Only quibble for me was “it” for “your dog”. For me, it should be him or her or them, not “it”!
Pleasant enough. That meaning of ‘Kip’ was new to me – and I’ve never come across ‘pantomime dame’ abbreviated to PANTO DAME. I misssed the Nina, as per, but they don’t come better than SIMONE.
The posher supermarkets (Waitrose, Booths) do say ‘8 items or FEWER’ at the express checkouts.
[Curiosity: Swedish has the opposite distinction – ‘mindre’ translates both ‘less’ and ‘fewer’, but there are two words for ‘more’: ‘mer’ for uncountables and ‘flera’ for countables]
Thanks to Anto and Andrew
ginf@17 If you would say, “I have fewer than ten pounds,” would you say “the board was fewer than ten feet long”?
Thanks, Anto and Andrew.
The less/fewer distinction is one of those fascinating moments when we get to observe the language changing under our feet. It’s sad when a useful distinction gets lost, such as the way rebut is becoming synonymous with refute, but I won’t lose sleep over this one.
Agree with others about PETIT and love FEWER. I couldn’t parse SKIPS, so thank you. I had decided that NOTES referred to the detail offered to unpack the SOFA (Statement Of Financial Activity) in charity accounting; explanation by Andrew is better. Thanks Anto and Andrew.
Wasn’t expecting to need a couple of sessions for this, but I was very sleepy last night and that’s just what happened.
Dictionaries probably disagree with me, but I wouldn’t use CRIME and sin interchangeably (like BM@27). One is a violation of a legal code, the other of a religious code. I suppose in reaction to some deed someone could flippantly say “That’s a sin” or “That’s a crime”, but maybe they’re not exactly saying the same thing. Just a thought.
There is less potable tap water in Moldova compared to the UK. This sentence is ambiguous because of the word less, perhaps I should use fewer?
I was torn between SKIPS and SPITS. As always in these situations, I plumped for the wrong one.
Lovely crossword. I thought both the nina and Nina were excellent.
Wow, really excellent Monday puzzle, one of the best I’ve seen. Consistently good surfaces and variety of wordplay devices. Almost completed on first pass, but NE was a bit sticky. LOI 12a FEWER was a delight
Pretty much all the clues were favourites, but I’ll single out 10a NAUSEATES (gerrymandering surface), 19a SPROG (knew this one thanks to Roz 42), 4d PANTO DAME (working on one right now)
15a ARCH RIVAL, glad I resisted the temptation to put ENEMY
Balfour@3 provides the icing on the cake with the Nina — brilliant!
“Fewer” should be retired. “Less” and “more” is all we need
Did seem to require more use of the grey matter than the average Monday puzzle, although I stumbled at the same stumbling blocks as others have mentioned. Good fun. Thanks Anto & Andrew.
Robi @46, isn’t that just petty larceny in colloquial English? gladys @39, a Nice get around.
Perhaps the supermarkets should remove the “8 items or less” signs from the relevant aisles and add “9 items or more” signs to all the rest. They’d get fewer complaints, especially from sign-writers.
NOTES and FEWER very much worth the journey.
Thanks Anto and Andrew.
We don’t need to keep “fewer” just because there might be some ambiguities. They’re easily dealt with…
Eddie27@59
Compared to the UK, Moldova has tap water that is less potable
Compared to the UK, Moldova has less tap water that is potable
Similarly MattG@40, you could easily have
There were less errors that were significant
There were errors that were less significant
Like Doofs #26 I remain unclear where the ET, or TE perhaps is clued in 9a, to insert in the reversed TIP (piece of advice). ‘Way’ presumably is part of the definition, and wouldn’t generate ET anyway.
I also agree that an indicator of foreign, French etc is needed. Petit seemed possible from early crossers, but I rejected it until all 3 crossers were in!
Dr.D. @66
I don’t think “piece of advice about way to reassure your dog?” is intended to be made up from TIP and ET – it’s just an alternative defintion for PET IT.
So is anybody really going to try to persuade me to read “lf n < 9, where n is a positive integer" as *if n is fewer than 9"? (Maybe we need a different symbol as well as a different word.)
And I'd only buy the "less significant people" ambiguity argument if it could equally be applied to "less tuneful music".
Surely "fewer" is a comparative, implying comparison with a few. So the really heinous crime is to say "fewer than a million".
Enjoyable UK Bank Holiday fare. Steady progress top to bottom although a few were half a guess based on definition and half a wordplay spot, so glad for some explanations here. Thanks Anto, and thanks Andrew.
Much more people say less when they should say fewer.
And before you correct me…it’s a joke 🙂
To the ancient mathematical part of my brain the distinction between fewer of a discrete quantity and less of a continuous one isn’t perplexing.
I liked this one – a Goldilocks one for me -finished it, just (albeit with a guess for SKIPS then coming here for parsing). So slightly disheartened by Andrew’s comments then greatly cheered by those who also found it satisfyingly chewy.
Anyone else saw NOTES as money you might find down the back of the sofa?
I had SOILS instead of SKIPS, and also tried SPITS before revealing the answer.
Could anyone be so kind as to explain how sprog links to issue? Or pilgrims progress, which I’ve never read. Thanks!
AmphiAnna@72. Yes I did as I wasn’t smart enough to parse it correctly. Otherwise that was a good workout for a 20min charging stop on the way to Paris.
It’s interesting (to me, anyway) that Chambers has eight separate entries for KIP. I might question whether Irish brothels are necessarily dirty places, but I don’t want to be interrogated about the extent of my knowledge of such matters.
Sacha @73 There aren’t many bods around here at this time to answer your query, so I’ll do my best. SPROG is a familiar word for a child – Roz of this parish always refers to her offspring using the term. ‘Issue’ also means child or children – legally if you ‘die without issue’, you die childless. You do not need to have any knowledge of the contents of TPP – as Andrew’s blog indicates, SPROG is contained/hidden within the title.
Meanwhile, I’m pleased that many have enjoyed the nina I alluded to before the business of the day caught up with me. That will go in my little collection of memorable ninas alongside, among a few others, the one several years ago when the setter (Picaroon?) had ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ round the perimeter of a puzzle which made several allusions to Verne’s novel.
Sacha@73 SPROG and issue both terms for a child , sprog is my favourite but our children would disagree . Pilgrim’s Progress is just their to hide the SPROG .
Sacha@73:
Sprog = offspring/child = issue. And hidden in Pilgrim’S PROGress.
Sorry , Roz@77 got there first.
Sorry to say I didn’t like this puzzle at all. 90% easy with a few weird ones I wasn’t sure about even when I got them.
All in all I think the least said….
DNF for me: SKIPS! And, while essentially a private person, I don’t mind revealing that I have slept in both a kip (many) and a skip (just once (but in my defence I was very drunk (we’ve all been there (eh?(no? (oh… (me neither)…)))))).
Amazing nina. Pity there aren’t very many iconic Ninas about, so an original and a once-off. Lovely stuff Anto and thanks to Andrew for FEWER.
Thanks Anto and Andrew for a very enjoyable Monday offering, and well spotted Balfour@3. I think it’s just a very clever, self-contained DD. [Had made a dog’s breakfast of 23D until I reflected that it was for an Irish setter.]
Well! I’m glad not all Quiptics are like this because I’d be feeling quite sheepish most Sundays.
I didn’t get the intersecting PETIT and NOTES [very good] and couldn’t fully parse them even when revealing them 😅. The verbosity of the CD for PETIT threw me, which mean I was another trying to account for two extra letters beyond TIP<. Though perhaps that same verbosity also excuses the "it" vs "him" or "her" that Veronica@53 mentioned. And chapeau to gladys@39; that'll do nicely.
I also failed on the (nho?) SIGHT GAGS, had spits instead of SKIPS (with justification, as others have mentioned), and had nho FINAGLE which seems like an Americanism. Ah well.
The less/fewer rule is harder than it's made out to be, as demonstrates by the arguments and examples here. I guess it's really to do with whether you "individualise" the components in context (typically yes for apples and no for sugar, bare quantities and measurements) – which is probably along the same lines as the mathematical continuity argument. And well played to TheFrog@70 for demonstrating that "more" is not in fact immune. I put whole topic in the same basket as "like" vs "such as". But hey, you can either be on the bus or under it (yet I'm afraid I'm under it, in both cases).
Coloradan@81, 😁
Thanks both
Had no problem with “petit” because in the US we have petit juries and grand juries. (And, as it happens, I have been chosen to serve on both kinds.)
It’s rare that the misuse of less rather than fewer causes confusion in daily usage. In situations where it could, one should take care. But there are countless situations in English where there can be ambiguity: in London there are many black cab drivers. Do I mean cab drivers who are black, or drivers of black cabs? Having said this, I did enjoy the clue!
If this had been a prize would spits or skips been accepted? Like others I went for the former which seems equally as valid to me for reasons voiced above.
I read think Anto commented here that he is Irish which would explain his use of “kip”.
For what it’s worth wikipedia says that the distinction between “less” and “fewer” is first noted in 1770.
It only works one way; less potatoes is common but fewer flour isn’t used.
I’m never sure on what authority this less vs fewer diktat is based. Yes, there are often times when ‘less’ feels inelegant and imprecise – but that’s just a matter of good style, the pursuit of which often requires writers to break ‘rules’. On the other hand, don’t get me started on prone/supine or jealousy/envy.
Another word that seems to create a lot of ambiguity is “more”. When the forecast is “More heavy rain”, do they mean more rain that’s heavy. or rain that’s more heavy? (Easy to get around with “Further heavy rain” or “Heavier rain”.)
Well, I had SPITS not SKIPS, being pieces of land formed by the sea dumping material and leaving it, and PIT being common slang for a dirty place.
And I’m still satisfied with that.
Thanks everyone.
I hadn’t heard of KIP that way exactly, but had encountered it as noun meaning ‘crash-pad’ or ‘flophouse’, the sort of place one goes only to sleep—which might well be dirty, so I called it close enough.
Beside EleanorK’s example at @83, PETIT as such in English usage appears also in _petit four_, a bite-sized decorated cake; I consider the fact that the plural is sometimes written “petit fours” to be evidence of naturalization, at least partial. Another such collocation is _petit mal_ (dated ?) for a type of epileptic seizure, although it’s less obviously “small”.
@Eddie “ There is less potable tap water in Moldova”
It’s either potable or it’s not. It’s either pregnant or it’s not. Neither is a matter of degree!