Fewer or less: which is correct

When I see misuse of this, it makes me crazy, for some reason. The worst offenders are the ones who are trying to be meticulously correct and impose "fewer" in places where "less" is really the appropriate word.

Newspaper copy editors have come up with rigid rules of usage that lead people to abominations such as this one from the Wall Street Journal:

Fewer than three years later, Mr. Slim earned more than $500 million in profit when Verizon Communications Inc. bought the carrier...

Ugh! I can just hear the Wall Street Journal´s copy editor saying, "You should use 'fewer' with things that can be counted."  The editor would be right in saying that years can be counted but would be wrong in applying the logic to this phrase.  Three years is a single measure of time, a unit, not a series of three discrete units. 

It should be, "Less than three years ago..."  

Here´s another abomination, from a story about Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt:

It took him fewer than 10 seconds to run 100 meters but at least 10 minutes to complete his victory lap. 

Again, 10 seconds is a period of time, a single period of time, not 10 individual units.  

It should be, "less than 10 seconds".  "Fewer" doesn´t even sound right. Again, the editor is applying the rule of countable units inappropriately. 

Here is another, from the New York Times:

An $11 fare to drive a passenger fewer than four miles was all D.Y. Kim had to show for his morning's labors.

Four miles is a distance, and in the context of the story is meant to signify a single unit of measure, not four. 

It should be, "less than four miles."

 

Here are some examples of correct usage:

Less than 1 million barrels of oil spilled from the tanker. Correct


There was more than 3 feet of snow on the ground. Correct. 

The robbers took less than $50 from the till. Correct

After the storm, the farmer had less than 10 acres of corn available for harvest. Correct

The bridge has clearance for vehicles less than 8 feet high. Correct 

I´ve visited the online AP Stylebook and reviewed its "Ask the Editor" section, where people seek advice on how to apply this rule. Most of the time, the editor applies a fierce kind of logic that results in bad advice being given. Here´s an example:

Do percentages count as numbers or amounts? In other words, is it: "Fewer than 3 percent of the country's stores..." or "Less than 3 percent of the country's stores..." – from Los Angeles on Mon, Oct 08, 2007

Editor's reply: The example seems to refer to individual stores, so fewer would be correct.

I could not disagree more. In this case, 3 percent is an amount, a quantity, a single measure, not a series of three countable units. With editors giving advice like that, it is no wonder that the abominations continue to proliferate.

As I learn every day in my struggles to speak perfect Spanish, language resists logic.  For every grammar rule that exists, there are other rules that countermand it.  We need fewer editors sticking to the logic of a single grammar rule, and more understanding the context of the rule.

Some indicators of corruption

Yesterday I was reading Mural, one of the better local dailies (there are five here), and I came upon this startling statistic: In the past 18 years, Mexico´s Secretary of Public Affairs has levied $3.3 billion dollars in fines (that´s correct, 40 billion pesos, or $3.3 billion dollars) against government officials for corruption.

That amounts to about $190 million dollars in fines a year against corrupt officials.

But the government has actually collected less than 1% of those fines. Why is the collection rate so bad? According to the article, the appeals process can be dragged out indefinitely, and, if it appears there will be a final resolution against the appelant in the case, he merely unloads all his assets so the fine can´t be collected. Perfectly legal.

Unbid contracts represent 97% of the total

On the same front page was a story about the handling of public contracts under the mayor of Guadalajara, Aristóteles Sandoval, who was recently elected on an anti-corruption platform.

As it turns out, the new regime has a worse record than the previous one in terms of awarding contracts not subject to a public bidding process. Under Sandoval, direct contract awards, made by the head of public works, represent 70% of total contracts, and another 27% are awarded to invited bidders.



Evidently the rules that require public bidding are open to interpretation. Juan Carlos Uranga, secretary of public works, says he alone decides who gets contract awards and who gets invited to make proposals for these unbid contracts. "And there is nothing untoward about it," he says.

The previous administration had 13% of contracts open to public bid, compared to this administration´s 3%.

Low pay, little opportunity here

An article in the local paper said the highest paid college graduates are those who study civil engineering (construction of highways, water systems, etc.). A new graduate can expect to make $10,700 a year.

Other recent graduates:
-- Marketing, $8,300 a year
-- Computing, $7,700
-- Elementary school teacher, $5,000
-- Law, $4,000
-- Accountant (bookkeeper might be a better description), $4,000

There aren´t a lot of jobs being created here outside of the government or political parties.

At every busy intersection you find people selling stuff to motorists -- toys, windshield wipers, candy, bug zappers, TV trays, you name it.

Many adult males are "cuidacoches", a type of informal valet parker who helps motorists find a parking spot or pull out of one, and offers to clean your car while you shop, for anywhere from $2.50 to $10. If you´re just getting help with parking, it´s considered polite to pay 5 pesos, or about 40 cents.

There are some beggars, mostly old women in country dress or very young women with babies.

Mexico is cheaper than the U.S. for many things but it´s not cheap to live here. I don´t know how many people keep body and soul together.

The Elegant Dead: Mexico´s catrina tradition

An ecologically conscious "catrina" with a skirt made of garbage bags.

Mexico´s Day of the Dead celebration is a mix of indigenous and Spanish cultural traditions, and in Guadalajara this year, it meant that the main street was lined with "catrinas".

The elegantly dressed skeletons (a "catrina" is an elegant woman) were designed by high school and college students and had a variety of themes.


A catrina in native dress captured an admirer.



The goddess of Death and the depiction of skulls go back thousands of years in Mesoamerican culture. There is an Aztec altar composed of hundreds of images of skulls (calaveras) in the heart of Mexico City, next to the main cathedral. Little sweets made in the shapes of skulls, called calaveritas, are part of the modern observance.

But the catrina tradition was made popular in the last century by a Mexican artist and caricaturist.


This catrina is outfitted in handkerchiefs.



The Goddess of Death is condemned by the Catholic Church but is worshiped by the lower classes and by narcotraffickers, who set up shrines to her.




Even young men want to pose with a catrina.


Some of the best catrinas were set up in the square around the cathedral so families out for a Sunday stroll could appreciate them.

The elegant dead like to garden....

...and to play with puppets.

Guanajuato, another magical place in Mexico

Mexicans put lots of color into their streetscapes. Brightly painted stucco was part of the architecture long before the Spaniards arrived.

Guanajuato spreads itself on hillsides that have been mined for silver for centuries. Many of the streets tunnel beneath the city center, so there are really two cities. Navigating in a car is extremely difficult, with all the underground routes, one-way streets and hairpin turns. We parked ours and took cabs.

It´s a labyrinth, as you can appreciate on this map.

A cablecar takes you up to a scenic overlook of the city, which has about 100,000 residents. Cindy remarked that its wrought iron balconies, narrow streets and palatial homes reminded her of European cities we´ve visited, like Genoa.

The city is a Unesco World Heritage site, largely because of its well preserved colonial buildings.

There is a famous granary building in Guanajuato where the heroes of independence won their first battle with the Spanish in 1810. Later four of these heroes, including Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico´s George Washington, were captured, executed, and decapitated and their heads were displayed from the granary´s cornices for 10 years.


The former Hacienda Barrera is today a museum and has a half-dozen impressive gardens with various themes.

The gardens at the Hacienda.

Guanajuato takes its name from the Purépecha language. It means hill of frogs, and there is a plaza with statues of frogs in many styles.

Our Easter candy used to come in baskets like these on display in the city market. Mexico must have been the source.

Cathedrals are colorful here.

Our hotel, the San Diego, was in what used to be a palatial home in the center of the city. Many of the hotels we´ve stayed in in Mexico have been marvelous to look at. Many have high ceilings, french doors, balconies and other nice architectural touches. For $80 a night, the beds are probably harder than Americans are used to, the bathroom is functional but probably small by American standards. High-speed internet access was free. I´ll take this type of place every time over a Holiday Inn, despite a few rough edges.

We´re suckers for archeological sites. This ceremonial center, known as las Plazuelas, thrived until about 1,100 years ago, when it declined for unknown reasons. Maybe invading Chichimecas.

Visit to José Cuervo distillery in Tequila

Today was our 40th anniversary, and we hadn´t planned anything special. We took a drive up to Tequila, a town where they´ve been making the José Cuervo beverage of that name for more than 250 years. The brand is older than the country. Older than the U.S. too, for that matter.

We´ve driven past the town of Tequila half a dozen times on our way elsewhere. It´s a Unesco World Heritage site and one of Mexico´s officially designated Magical Towns (Pueblos Mágicos).

It´s only about 35 miles from our apartment in Guadalajara so we thought it was time we stopped and visited. It lies in the heart of the blue agave region, which is used to produce tequila.

Blue agave fields are visible all around the state of Jalisco.

So we ended up going to the tequila museum and touring the José Cuervo distillery, where we had a couple of shots and some margaritas as part of the tour ($8 per person), and then had a nice dinner.

The piñas remain after the spiky leaves are removed from the blue agave plant.

They make tequila from the heart of the blue agave plant, which is a mass of starch that weighs about 75 pounds. This starchy bulb, called a piña, is cooked for a day and a half, which converts the starch to sugar. It is then crushed and pressed. The liquid is the base used for fermenting and then distilling into the liquor.

Mostly these kinds of tours don´t grab me, but I was struck by the figure tossed out by the guide: that particular distillery turns out 72,000 liters of tequila a day.

Two happy couples in the Museum of Tequila.


Of course, the tour bus for the town of Tequila has a distinctive styling. The shirt is for the Black Lions fútbol team of the University of Guadalajara.

All the towns in the state of Jalisco can use the name "tequila" on their distilled products of blue agave, as long as they meet certain standards. The designation of tequila is a "denominación de origen controlada" restricted to certain parts of Mexico, much like champagne and burgundy can only be used on products from those regions.

Mexico´s crisis looms over bicentennial

I´ve just finished reading Mariano Azuela´s gritty novel about the 1910 Mexican revolution, "Los de Abajo".

He uses a stark realism to depict one of the bands of anti-government forces who fought the federales.

The peasants who rise up against the landed gentry and hacienda owners lose their ideals along the way. Hardened by the war, they see the lofty goals of land reform and democracy as dreams of fools. The people´s army degenerates at times into a pitiless gang of thieves and murderers.

It´s a dark tale about the pointlessness of war. The author, who is a native of the state of Jalisco, where we live, served as a physician in the forces of Pancho Villa, one of the revolutionaries. He knew what he was talking about.

A revolution every 100 years

That´s the saying in Mexico, where revolutions were launched in 1810 and 1910.

Mexicans are now celebrating their bicentennial, but there doesn´t appear to be another revolution on the horizon.

Enrique Krauze, a Mexican historian and newspaper columnist, wrote recently in the New York Times:

Despite a bloody mythology that venerates the great protagonists of 1810 and 1910, most of whom met brutal deaths, the common denominators of our national history have been social, ethnic and religious coexistence; the peaceful construction of cities, villages and communities; and the creation of a rich cultural mosaic. Many of us want to believe that we are living through a nightmare from which, one morning, we will simply wake up, once again at ease.

Krauze tends to be an optimist. More than a year ago, he argued passionately that Mexico was not a "failed state" about to fall apart because of the growing power of the drug lords. Obviously, he has maintained this confidence.

At the very least, Mexico´s state is being seriously challenged. Every day there are examples of increasingly audacious defiance of authority by drug lords, who execute mayors, police officials and anyone else who gets in their way.

The cry of freedom in 1810

Mural depicting Miguel Hidalgo, father of the 1810 Revolution, here in Guadalajara. The artist was Clemente Orozco.

So reflections on where Mexico is going are part of the 200th anniversary celebration of the uprising that threw off Spanish control.

The priest Miguel Hidalgo is regarded as the George Washington of Mexico. The revolution he started began in the deliberations of a book club (tertulia) in the town of Dolores, where he was assigned.

(Skip down to the heading "Involvement in Queretaro" to see how the Insurgentes, sort of the Franklin-Adams-Jefferson-Hamilton-Washington of Mexico, got started in a book club.)

Trained by the Jesuits, Hidalgo was an unconventional priest. He had relationships with several women and fathered at least five children.

Here is Krauze´s assessment of the revolution Hidalgo started:

From 1810 to 1821, the war for independence cost about 300,000 lives in a population of around 6 million. Afterward, state income, agricultural, industrial and mining production, and, above all, the availability of capital for investment did not reach their pre-1810 levels until the 1880s. And the material desolation was followed by almost five decades of insecurity on the roads, political instability and grievous civil and international wars.

It was in this church in Dolores that Hidalgo made his call for independence from Spain 200 years ago. This speech sermon is now referred to as El Grito (the shout).

Hidaldo was executed the next year, but not before the revolution was well under way.

We visited Dolores Hidalgo in March with my sister, Nancy, and her husband, Tom Lukens. In the photo below, Nancy and I are at the statue of Hidalgo.