How to use A LITTLE, A FEW, LITLLE and FEW

a little/a few and little/few:

A) a little/little (adjectives) are used before uncountablenouns:

a little salt/little salt a few/few (adjectives) areused before plural nouns.

a few people/few people All four forms can also be used aspronouns, either alone or with of:

Sugar? ~ A little, please

Only a few of these are any good

B) a little, a few (adjectives and pronouns)

a little is a small amount, or what the speaker considers asmall

amount, a few is a small number, or what the speaker considers asmall number.

only placed before a little/a few emphasizes that thenumber or amount really is small in the speaker's opinion:

Only a few of our customers have accounts But quite placedbefore a few increases the number considerably:

/ have quite a few books on art (quite a lot of books)

C) little and few (adjectives and pronouns)

little and few denote scarcity or lack and have almost theforce of a negative:

There was little time for consultation.

Little is known about the side-effects of this drug.

Few towns have such splendid trees.

This use of little and few is mainly confined towritten English (probably because in conversation little andfew might easily be mistaken for a little/a few). Inconversation, therefore, little and few are normallyreplaced by hardly any A negative verb + much/many isalso possible:

We saw little = We saw hardly anything/We didn't see much.

Tourists come here but few stay overnight =

Tourists come here but hardly any stay overnight. But littleand few can be used more freely when they are qualified byso, very, too, extremely, comparatively, relatively etc. fewer(comparative) can also be used more freely.

I'm unwilling to try a drug I know so little about

They have too many technicians, we have too few

There are fewer butterflies every year.

D) a little/little (adverbs)

1 a little can be used-

(a) with verbs: It rained a little during the night.

They grumbled a little about having to wait.

(b) with 'unfavourable' adjectives and adverbs: a little anxious a little unwillingly

a little annoyed a little impatiently

(c) with comparative adjectives or adverbs:

The paper should be a little thicker

Can't you walk a little faster?

rather could replace a little in (b) and can also beused before comparatives (see 42), though a little is moreusual. In colloquial English a bit could be used instead of alittle in all the above examples.

2 little is used chiefly with better or morein fairly formal style'

His second suggestion was little (= not much) better thanhis first.

He was little (= not much) more than a child when hisfather died It can also, in formal English, be placed beforecertain verbs, for example expect, know, suspect, think:

He little expected to find himself in prison He little thoughtthat one day Note also the adjectives little-known andlittle-used: a little-known painter a little-used footpath