Fewer versus less

The comparative less is used with both countable and uncountable nouns in some informal discourse environments and in most dialects of English.{{Citation needed|date=August 2014}} In other informal discourse however, the use of fewer could be considered natural. For example, many supermarket checkout line signs read "10 items or less" while others use fewer reflecting the influence of prescriptive grammar on standard language practices. Descriptive grammarians consider this to be a case of hypercorrection as explained in Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage."Supermarket checkouts are correct when the signs they display read 5 items or less (which refers to a total amount), and are misguidedly pedantic when they read 5 items or fewer (which emphasizes individuality, surely not the intention)." ([https://web.archive.org/web/20120814160151/http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/08/less-or-fewer/ Oxford Dictionaries]) In 2008 a British supermarket chain replaced its "10 items or less" notices at checkouts with "up to 10 items" to avoid the issue.{{Cite news |date=2008 |title=When to use 'fewer' rather than 'less'? |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7591905.stm}}{{Cite web |date=2008 |title=Tesco to ditch 'ten items or less' sign after good grammar campaign |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2659948/Tesco-to-ditch-ten-items-or-less-sign-after-good-grammar-campaign.html}} It has also been noted that it is less common to favour "At fewest ten items" over "At least ten items" – a potential inconsistency in the "rule",[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7590440.stm Tesco is to change the wording of signs on its fast-track checkouts to avoid any linguistic dispute], BBC, August 2008. and a study of online usage seems to suggest that the distinction may, in fact, be semantic rather than grammatical.{{Cite web |last=Liberman |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Liberman |date=2006 |title=If it was good enough for King Alfred the Great... |url=http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003775.html |publisher=Language Log}} Likewise, it would be very unusual to hear the unidiomatic "I have seen that film at fewest ten times."{{Cite web |date=2012-03-29 |title=The least and the fewest |url=http://www.englishgrammar.org/fewest/#909Ouw2BGuUkpWTU.99 |access-date=2016-01-27 |website=Englishgrammar.org}}{{Failed verification|date=June 2018}}

The Cambridge Guide to English Usage notes that the "pressure to substitute fewer for less seems to have developed out of all proportion to the ambiguity it may provide in noun phrases like less promising results". It describes conformance with this pressure as a shibboleth and the choice "between the more formal fewer and the more spontaneous less" as a stylistic choice.{{Cite book |title=The Cambridge Guide to English Usage |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgeguideto00pete_0/page/205 |page=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgeguideto00pete_0/page/205 205] |date=2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-62181-6 |chapter-url-access=registration |chapter=fewer or less}}

Some prescriptivists prescribe the rule addition that less should be used with units of measurement of time, money, weight or distance (e.g. "less than 10 dollars").{{Cite web |title=Fewer vs. Less – Grammar & Punctuation |url=http://data.grammarbook.com/blog/definitions/fewer-v-less/ |access-date=2016-01-27 |website=The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation (grammarbook.com)}}

Some argue that the rare and unidiomatic{{Cite web |date=2013-01-10 |title=Throw Grammar from the Train: One fewer non-rule to follow |url=http://throwgrammarfromthetrain.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/one-fewer-non-rule-to-follow.html |access-date=2016-01-27 |website=Throwgrammarfromthetrain.blogspot.co.uk}} one fewer should be used instead of one less (both when used alone or together with a singular, discretely quantifiable noun as in "there is one fewer cup on this table"), but Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage says that "of course [less] follows one".

Less has historically been used in English with countable nouns, but a distinction between the use of fewer and less is first recorded in the 18th century. On this, Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage notes,{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/merriamwebstersd00merr |title=Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage |publisher=Merriam-Webster |date=1995 |isbn=0-87779-132-5 |edition=2nd |page=[https://archive.org/details/merriamwebstersd00merr/page/592 592] |chapter=less, fewer |url-access=registration}}

:As far as we have been able to discover, the received rule originated in 1770 as a comment on less: "This Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should think Fewer would do better. 'No Fewer than a Hundred' appears to me, not only more elegant than 'No less than a Hundred', but more strictly proper." (Robert Baker 1770).{{Cite book |last=Baker |first=Robert |url=https://archive.org/details/remarksonenglis00bakegoog |title=Reflections on the English Language: In the Nature of Vaugelas's Reflections on the French |publisher=J. Bell |date=1770 |page=55}} (The subtitle refers to the 17th-century French grammarian Vaugelas.) Baker's remarks about 'fewer' express clearly and modestly – 'I should think,' 'appears to me' – his own taste and preference....Notice how Baker's preference has been generalized and elevated to an absolute status and his notice of contrary usage has been omitted."

The oldest use that the Oxford English Dictionary gives for less with a countable noun is a quotation from 888 by Alfred the Great:

:{{lang|ang|Swa mid {{strong|læs worda}} swa mid ma, swæðer we hit yereccan mayon.}}

:("With {{strong|less words}} or with more, whether we may prove it.")

This is in fact an Old English partitive construction using the "quasi-substantive" adverb {{lang|ang|læs}} and the genitive {{lang|ang|worda}} ("less of words") (cf. plenty of words and *plenty words). When the genitive plural ceased to exist, less of words became less words, and this construction has been used since then until the present.{{Cite book |last=Fowler |first=H.W. |title=Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-966135-0 |editor-last=Butterfield |editor-first=Jeremy |page=472}}

• Grammatical number
• {{section link|Mass noun|Words fewer and less}}
• Count noun
• Quantization (linguistics)

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv260.shtml Less/Fewer – Learning English – BBC World Service]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120107231238/http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/less-or-fewer Less/Fewer – Oxford Dictionaries]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20071124090932/http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxlessvs.html History of the rule and exceptions]
• [http://www.translationdirectory.com/article853.htm Translation Directory on the relevancy of the rule]

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Category:English grammar

Category:English usage controversies