Bryson's Dictionary, Part 2

A few more of Bill Bryson's definitions:

fewer, less. Use less with singular nouns (less money, less sugar) and fewer with plural nouns (fewer houses, fewer cars). *Amazing how many advertisers get this wrong.

fortuitous. Means by chance; it is not a synonym for fortunate. A fortuitous event may be fortunate, but equally it may not.

hoi polloi. Means "the masses, the common populace," and not "the elite" as is so often thought. A second problem is that in Greek hoi means the, so to speak of "the hoi polloi" is redundant.

koala bears. Wrong. Koalas are marsupials and have no relation to bears. Just call them koalas.

lacy. Not -ey.

Parmesan cheese. (Cap P.) In Italian, parmigiano (no cap.). *I don't get this. If Parmesan is capped when used with cheese, why isn't champagne capped when referring to the wine? If I had that email address for Bill, I'd ask him.