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"greater than" vs. "more than"

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"greater than" vs. "more than"

by sal_xcool » Mon Feb 14, 2011 2:06 pm
The peregrine falcon, which was added to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Endangered Species List in the 1970's, has made a startling comeback, largely in cities, and is now off the list; its numbers in New York City alone are now many times greater than when it was added to the list.

A. list; its numbers in New York City alone are now many times greater than
B. list; its numbers in New York City alone are now many times more than
C. list, their numbers now many times what they were
D. list, now with many times the numbers they had
E. list, now with numbers being many times greater than

OA is A

Can you explain why the answer is not B?
How do you make distinction between "greater than" and "more than"?
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by Night reader » Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:56 pm
when comparing two or more numbers, estimating number values - use greater instead of more; e.g. five is greater than 2 and Not five is more than 2
sal_xcool wrote:The peregrine falcon, which was added to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Endangered Species List in the 1970's, has made a startling comeback, largely in cities, and is now off the list; its numbers in New York City alone are now many times greater than when it was added to the list.

A. list; its numbers in New York City alone are now many times greater than
B. list; its numbers in New York City alone are now many times more than
C. list, their numbers now many times what they were
D. list, now with many times the numbers they had
E. list, now with numbers being many times greater than

OA is A

Can you explain why the answer is not B?
How do you make distinction between "greater than" and "more than"?
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by Tani » Mon Feb 14, 2011 7:39 pm
This is a tricky idiom.

A number or quantity is greater, but there are more birds or things.
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by pesfunk » Fri Mar 25, 2011 7:15 pm
Tani, In that case, could you kindly help us with a generic answer for these kind of questions ?
Tani Wolff - Kaplan wrote:This is a tricky idiom.

A number or quantity is greater, but there are more birds or things.
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by Tani » Sat Mar 26, 2011 5:27 pm
This is similar to the much/many, amount/number and less/fewer rules. You use "more than" for countable and "greater" for non-countable things.
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by krazy800 » Sun Mar 27, 2011 8:50 am
Tani Wolff - Kaplan wrote:This is similar to the much/many, amount/number and less/fewer rules. You use "more than" for countable and "greater" for non-countable things.
Tani:

Aren't the numbers countable? If so, can't we use more than in this construction?


Please clarify.
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by Tani » Sun Mar 27, 2011 12:33 pm
you can count the birds, but you can't count the number of birds. For example you could say "12 birds", but you couldn't say "12 numbers of birds".
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