[Grammar] second and third marriages

[Waawe]

A test question:

The study also watched second and third marriages and found that they bring ________ health benefits than a first marriage.

Options:

1/ a little
2/ less
3/ the least

If you asked me, I'd go for fewer, however, there isn't such an option.

What is the correct answer?

Waawe

 

[jutfrank]

Re: Test question

The correct answer is fewer. Your grammar is evidently better than that of the person who wrote the test.

Where did you find this question?

 

[Rover_KE]

Find a better source for your tests; 'watched' is not appropriate here.

Please note that I have changed your thread title.

'Thread titles should include all or part of the word/phrase being discussed.'

 

[tedmc]

The second option , the comparative "less", though used with the uncountable but commonly "misused" that way, would be the best of the three.

 

[5jj]

The second option , the comparative "less", though used with the uncountable but commonly "misused" that way, would be the best of the three.

I'd change that to least bad.

 

[emsr2d2]

Waawe, you still haven't provided the source of this terrible question. You must do this in post #1.

 

[5jj]

I'd change that to least bad.

Having reflected on this, I now feel that that comment reflected the pedantic, old-fashioned side of me. My personal antipathy toward less/least with plural nouns is as strong as that of my schoolmasters sixty years ago to split infinitives and sentence-ending prepositions. However, I have thought for some years that I am probably in a dying minority of native speakers.

Even fifty years ago, when my teacher-trained first wife joined me in the world of ELT, I had to explain the correct usage to her. I similarly had to explain it to my daughter and son (both with two MAs) when they were about to take their basic grammar test before acceptance on their CELTA courses, and to my post-CELTA future wife (with a PhD) when we met in 2002. Only about 25% of the native speaking trainees on the Cert TESOL course I taught in in the mid-noughties observed the correct usage in their own informal speech.

I think it's probably time that I accept that the use of less/least with plural nouns is natural modern English. I could not bring myself to teach this, but I would tell my learners that they would hear and see it from educated native speakers.

 

[Rover_KE]

Some examples upset me less than others.

I find supermarket check-out notices saying TEN ITEMS OR LESS are much less offensive than '... marriages bring less health benefits' or 'Emma Nation read less books last year than her brother Uri'.