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Bought a new pack of a hair product which now uses 6% less natural ingredients and is no longer vegan (lemmy.zip)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[+] [email protected] -13 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Have we just forgotten about the word "fewer" entirely at this point?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Mine fewer?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago

It's not 6 fewer ingredients, it's 6% less of the total being naturally derived.

It's hilarious that you made an even dumber error in a try at correcting.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure that applies here. Generally, when measuring something, you use less. Like I wouldn't say , I just drank from my glass and it now has fewer waters in it. In this case, "natural ingredients" is a set of things that are being measured as a single "ingredient". Like let's say the natural ingredients are soot and berry juice. Would you say the paint has fewer or less soot and berry juice?

But then again language is all made up, the rules don't matter, and you're only truly wrong if the meaning is lost.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I can see that, but the plural "ingredients" still makes my gut say it should be fewer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It depends on context. If you are dealing with a percentage of overall types of ingredients by volume without changing the variety of ingredients you would probably use "less". Like if you reduced the mix of milk related ingredients. You would use "fewer" to indicate that the number of individual ingredients had changed. Like if they got rid of two of the ingredients of an original ten.

This could be a category error?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I guess it depends on if it is a case of there having had been 97 of 100 ingredients having been naturally derived and now only 91 of those ingredients are such. Which admittedly seems unlikely.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I mean it could be using the percentages of another number. Like if there's 20 ingredients and you drop one it's a 5% reduction or if you added other non natural ingredients that would cause the percentage to drop... But whether it's less or fewer would depend on information we don't readily have because we don't know if it's ingredients by volume or of it's a reformulation of ingredients... and may be at the crux of this grammatical problem depending on what you assume is going on?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

You are showing them backwards - the NEW formulation is the one that says vegan. Did you buy the second one at Big Lots or something?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No more shiny cap either.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Matt paste, matte cap

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago

Who's Matt and how come you've got his paste?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It should not really matter I think. Maybe its just a marketing strategy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

For someone that doesn't appreciate the formerly creamy yet cruelty free texture, maybe.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago

I don't get this brand in my place if not I'll try it. Look promising.

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