Here’s an instance of the phrase greater or lesser:
Unobjectionable, right?
Here’s another instance:
Unobjectionable too, no?
Here’s another example of the same sort:
That’s unobjectionable too, right?
Actually, the second and third examples don’t work.
The first example refers to something getting bigger or smaller. So in that context, greater means “bigger” and lesser means “smaller”. By contrast, the second and third examples compare something to something else. In that context, greater, when followed by than (either immediately, as in the second example, or more remotely, as in the third example), is used to mean more.
In other words, the word greater works in both contexts. But lesser doesn’t work in the second context. One doesn’t say lesser than; you say less than. Nevertheless, today I encountered this ungrammatical use of greater or lesser in a contract I was asked to review, and I found more than 1,700 examples on EDGAR. And I found a bunch more examples of lesser than on its own, without greater. So this ungrammatical use of lesser than would seem to be a thing.
I recommend if you have a following than, use more or less instead of greater or lesser (and instead of the grammatical greater or less too). (And if lesser than is used on its own, use instead less than.) If instead you’re referring to something getting bigger or smaller, greater or lesser would do, but bigger or smaller is simpler, so I suggest you use that instead.
Is anything at stake here? Not in terms of the deal, but I’d have thought we wouldn’t need any arm-twisting to convince people that it’s best to fix ungrammatical writing.
