I have a question about the word-usage of "less." Does the sentence "This winter is less cold than last one." make sense?
-
Or you could say "This winter is warmer than the last one" and avoid the issue entirely.– Damien HCommented Oct 22, 2014 at 6:15
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
I have a question about the word-usage of "less". Does the sentence ...
- This winter is less cold than last one.
... make sense?
The example sentence is fine - regarding less. However, there is a small problem though with "one". The word one here is not a pronoun ( - although there is a pronoun one as well). The word one is a countable noun. Here, one is singular, and singular countable nouns in English must have a determiner. Determiners are words like:
- a, the, this, that, my, your, no, one, two ... , John 's and so forth.
Here we need the because everybody understands which year we are talking about. So the Original Poster's sentence would be perfect like this:
- This winter is less cold than the last one.
Hope this helps!
answered Oct 21, 2014 at 23:34
Araucaria - Not here any more.Araucaria - Not here any more.
28k4 gold badges56 silver badges123 bronze badges
-
1I think you meant "This winter is less cold than the last one." The issue could be avoided by not using one, for example "This winter is less cold than last winter", since seasons don't need an article.– user3169Commented Oct 21, 2014 at 23:39
-
@user3169 Erm, oops. Yes - must watch that cut 'n paste! Have amended -Thanks very much! :) Yes, your other comment's also spot on :) Commented Oct 21, 2014 at 23:40
-
+1 because you covered the matter of the determiner/article really well. But I can't help thinking the fact that OP has raised the word "less" in the question title suggests the missing the really just an incidental error. Commented Oct 22, 2014 at 2:22
There is nothing grammatically wrong with 'less cold than', but I think many native speakers would say 'not so/as cold as'.
