As the credit crunch bites – or crunches – supermarket giant Tesco reveals its new survival strategy: good grammar. From The Telegraph:

Tesco has bowed to pressure from those lobbying for the use of good English and have altered checkout signs reading "ten items or less" in the interests of being gramatically correct.

From now on, signs in new stores are to say "up to 10 items" after a long running argument with those who have objected to the use of the word "less" in that context.

Many have argued that the signs ought to read "ten items or fewer" instead of "ten items or less". Their argument is that the word 'fewer' should be used when it refers to quantities that can be counted. 'Less', they say, should refer to quantities that cannot be counted.

The new form of words comes from a suggestion by the Plain English Campaign.

"There is a debate about whether the word should be 'less' or 'fewer'," a campaign spokesman said. "Saying 'up to ten items' is easy to understand and avoids any debate."

Guidance from Oxford University Press says: "Less means 'not as much'. Fewer means 'not as many'. This can be tricky when referring to quantities. For example, we say less than six weeks, not fewer than six weeks, because we are not referring to six individual weeks, but to a single period of time lasting six weeks."

Hopes that changing the wording would provide a satisfactory solution to the knotty problem appear premature with some critics claiming that the new signs are themselves ambiguous.

Some would argue that "up to ten items" could mean "ten items and no more" or "nine items or fewer".

A Tesco spokesman said: "The debate about what is right has been going on for years now, and I still don't think we know if 'less' or 'fewer' is correct.

"The new signs will be in the rolling out of new stores. We are not going to see any new ones in existing shops so shoppers in those will not see the change."

“Rolling out”? It’s a shop, not a lump of pastry.

As this news item points out, “up to ten items” is still ambiguous. One reader suggests “up to and including ten items”. Better still, another suggests "<=10 items”.

Tesco is obviously trying to position itself as middle to lower middle class; it is aware “less” may be less than grammatical but isn’t snooty about it.  In Waitrose, where the posh people shop for their polenta with nary a split infinitive, only “ten items or fewer” will do. But “ten items or less” is good enough for Morrisons, whose slogan “more reasons to shop at Morrisons” attracts the aitch-dropping shopper.

US supermarket chain Fresh & Easy is a subsidiary of Tesco. I would be interested to hear how they approach the "ten items or less" issue.