[ExI] young people having less sex

[Dan TheBookMan]

That’s more responding to the subject line — which is not mine originally, so I accept no blame for it;). This seems an ambiguous case because less sex could mean fewer sex acts or less time (in seconds or as a percentage) expended on sex. A person could have two hours of continuous sex a day, but consider that one sex act (how to draw the line?) or have a half hour of sex a day, but have it broken into three ten minute sex acts. Who has had more sex in these cases?

In this context, “sex” seems a mass known, which is why you and I had to fall back on “sex act” to be clear, no?

And I think the real test is whether people understand the construction. Yes, “fewer sex acts” is standard English, but using less instead of fewer rarely confuses readers or listeners, does it? 

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst

> On Nov 19, 2018, at 4:46 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Grammar problem:  'less' usually refers to things that are continuous in quantity - more rice, less rice, whereas 'fewer'usually refers to things that are discrete in quantity - more eggs, fewer eggs.  So you can have fewer people, not less people.
> 
> But just what is sex??  Discrete or continuous?  Have to go with discrete, which makes the awkward construction 'people having fewer sex'.  Nah.  Fewer sex 'acts' works.  
> 
> People who go all the way with the male to female thing could, in a twisted way, have less sex, or maybe less sex things to have sex with.  Nah, still have to be fewer.  
> 
> Sorry I wasted your time.
> 
> bill w
> 
>> On Mon, Nov 19, 2018 at 5:20 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Sort of related to the original subject:
>> 
>> https://medium.com/the-radical-center/does-america-have-a-child-bride-crisis-fa4afdb7b4bc
>> 
>> And Peron seems correct about how people code this issue in a way that makes there appear to be a bigger problem.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Dan
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