A few days ago, a reader who described her job as drafting letters and taking the minutes of meetings sent me e-mail about an all-too-familiar English usage predicament: “May I request you to write a column on the usage of ‘regard’, ‘regards’, and ‘regarding’? Is it correct to use ‘as regards to the…’ or ‘with regards to the…’? You see, every time I use ‘with regard to…’, my superior always adds ‘s’ to it and I can’t explain to him why the word ‘regard’ in that usage shouldn’t have an ‘s’.”

Here’s my open reply to that reader:

Many years ago, I encountered a similar predicament about the “with regards to…” idiom. One of my superiors in the company where I used to work had the imperious habit of using “with regards to…”—with “s” always affixed to the word “regard”—every time he wrote a memo: “With regards to your memo dated June 9, please be informed that…” The usage sounded so stiff to me, and I thought that “regarding,” “concerning,” or “about” would have done a more natural-sounding job: “Regarding your memo dated June 9, please be informed that…” “Concerning your memo dated June 9, please be informed that…” “About your memo dated June 9, please be informed that…”

Indeed, when I checked, I found out that “with regards to…” (along with its other dubious variant, “in regards to”) is actually nonstandard usage—what one language authority, The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, called a “shibboleth,” or a use of language regarded as distinctive of a particular group. In other words, it isn’t generally accepted usage; the standard usage is “with regard to…”: “With regard to your memo dated June 9, please be informed that…” As in your case, however, I knew my place in the scheme of things and made no attempt to correct my superior. (After all, you shouldn’t lose your job for having English grammar that’s better than that of your boss.)

So I imagine that until today, that boss of mine still blissfully foists “with regards to…” on superiors and subordinates alike in his memos wherever he’s working now. You see, people who acquire such questionable usage often need the hammer-and-anvil of experience—perhaps a strong-minded superior who knows his or her English usage better —to finally correct themselves.*

Other than “regarding,” of course, two other “regard” idioms are considered standard usage: “as regards…” and “in regard to…”: “As regards your request for transfer, please furnish us with…” “In regard to your request for transfer, please furnish us with…” As an advocate for plain and simple English, however, I would advise against their use. Even if many lawyers, bureaucrats, and corporate types find them useful for giving an officious edge to their memos, I think that our memos would sound much more pleasant and engaging—and get better results—if they used just plain “regarding,” “concerning,” or “about” instead: “Regarding your request for transfer, please furnish us with…” “Concerning your request for transfer, please furnish us with…” “About your request for transfer, please furnish us with…”

Now, if “with regards to…” and “in regards to” are indeed substandard usage, why is it that people fall into the often-intractable habit of using them? I think it’s because there are actually three similar-sounding “regards” idioms that are standard usage: “give my regards,” “extend my regards,” and “with my regards.” These idioms, however, are not in the same semantic league as “with regards to…” and “in regards to.” Instead, they are expressions of good wishes, the stuff of conventional closings for letters and for other situations that require parting words, as in these expressions: “Give my regards to your wife and children.” “Please extend my regards to the staff.”

And I’ll now use the third such “regards” expression to close this open letter of mine:

With my best regards,
Joe Carillo
(June 11, 2007)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, June 11, 2007 © 2007 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

*I wish to note for the record here that that former boss of mine passed away in 2009. Whether or not he had eventually realized that “with regards to” is nonstandard English and subsequently avoided its usage, may his soul have eternal rest.

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The urge to size up and compare things is no doubt one of humankind’s strongest instincts, so it’s really no surprise that every language evolves a well-defined grammar for comparatives. In English, of course, the comparative is normally formed in either of two ways: (a) by adding the suffix “-er” to the positive form of an adjective (or adverb), as in “sweeter” for “sweet,” or (b) by putting the modifiers “more,” “less,” or “fewer” ahead of a polysyllabic adjective derived from a foreign language, as in “more lucrative,” “less delicious,” and “fewer candidates.”

Then, to complete the comparative form, the subordinating conjunction “than” is placed between the two elements being compared: “The oranges in this orchard are sweeter than those grown across the river.” “Her business is more [less] lucrative than mine.” “The vacant position attracted fewer applicants than we expected.” Note that in these comparative constructions, the first element is a clause that expresses the difference (as in “The oranges in this orchard are sweeter”), and the second element is introduced by the subordinating conjunction “than” (“than those grown across the river”).

In two-clause sentences, however, the following two-part subordinating conjunctions are used instead of “than”: (a) “as/not as…as,” as in “Our Baguio branch is as [not as] big as our Cebu branch”; (b) “not so/not as…as,” as in “Her second novel is not as [not so] exciting as her first one”; (c) “the same…as,” as in “Her dress that night was the same design as the party host’s”; and (d) “less/more…than,” as in “The trip cost more [less] than he had planned.”

These comparatives are already second nature to most of us, but when it comes to the comparatives “fewer” and “less” in particular, not a few native and nonnative English speakers still fumble in their choice. Indeed, precisely under what circumstances should “fewer” or “less” be used?  

The choice between “fewer” and “less” depends on whether the noun to be modified is countable or noncountable. When something is countable, of course, we can figure out without great difficulty how many of it there are; we then use “number” as an indefinite measure for it, as in “the number of voters” and the “a number of recipes.” In contrast, something is noncountable if it’s in bulk form and counting its constituent units would be insufferably difficult or impossible; we then use “amount” as a measure for it, as in “the amount of sunlight” and “a great amount of labor.”

Now, the word “fewer” is used as a comparative for plural count nouns, or things that use “number” as measure, as in “There are fewer buyers of hats now than last month” and “She found fewer grammatical errors in the latest student essays.” On the other hand, “less” is used as a comparative for singular mass nouns, or things that use “amount” as measure, as in “We consumed less electricity this month than last month” and “Our new supervisor is less strict in attendance than his predecessor.”

Usually, a comparative statement would ping our ears if it wrongly uses “less” for “fewer” or vice versa, as in “Less contractors than anticipatedare bidding for the irrigation dam construction” or “Our customers are showing fewer tolerance for the saltiness of our spaghetti.” (Now feel the pleasant autocorrection when “less” is replaced with “fewer” in the first sentence, and “fewer” with “less” in the second: “Fewer contractors than anticipatedare bidding for the irrigation dam construction.” “Our customers are showing less tolerance for the saltiness of our spaghetti.”)

Some exceptions, though: When a plural count noun is thought of as an aggregate, “amount” instead of “number” can be used as a measure for it, as in “They’ll supply us with whatever amount of smoked ham we need.” Also, in c

ertain cases, it’s grammatically correct to use a singular mass noun in the plural-count sense, like “cement” in the following sentence: “We need to reduce the number of kilos of cement that we are ordering monthly.” (May 29, 2010)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, May29, 2010 © 2010 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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