A Comprehensive Guide to English Grammar and its Application to Fictional Writing

[Owen Glyndwr]

"Less Emissions, not less style!"

There are some major errors in the sentence that I can see presently.

1. Subject: The sentence has no subject. It has a noun, "emissions", however emissions here, I would assume is being used as a direct object and not a subject, and it's the same thing with style.
2. Verb: There is no verb in the sentence, not one. Let's identify the parts of speech of this sentence, shall we? Less can be used as a noun, adjective, adverb, or preposition, however in this case, it's being used as an adjective to describe "emissions", and style. "Emissions" and "style", as I said, are nouns which I would assume are being used as the D.O. of a nonexistant verb. "Not" is an adverb as well. So there's a problem there, isn't there? We have a fragment. Now, fixing it can be a bit tricky, as in normal speech we wouldn't use a subject here, but, in order to be grammatically correct, every English sentence (or at least most) demands a subject.

"One should make less emissions and not less style."

1. Notice that I added a subject (One) to the first part of the sentence, as well as a verb (make). This turns the first statement into an independent clause, and with it, we can now make the sentence grammatically correct. Also notice that I added a conjunction (and) and removed a comma. Since we are combining an independent clause and a dependent clause, rather than two independent clauses, no comma is required.


However there is one more problem, and is, for most, probably the focus of the sentence. One of the hardest things to understand in the English language is the difference between the words less and fewer. Less is used with mass nouns, whereas fewer is used with counting nouns. Although most use less for emissions, it is a counting noun, and as such, should be used with fewer. Style, however, is a mass noun, and thusly less can stay where it is.

"One should make fewer emissions and not less style."

Of couse you can see why the phrase is grammtically correct; it doesn't sound as catchy, does it? Well that's how it should be!