A 42-year-old waitress presents to your office for evaluation of shortness of breath. She has had a fever as high as 103°F for the last 3 days and has a cough productive of green sputum. On physical examination you hear crackles in her lungs. A chest radiograph reveals a consolidation in the left lower lobe. You diagnose her with a lobar pneumonia. When you perform tactile fremitus of the left lower thorax you would expect fremitus to be