Less versus fewer | Frequently confused words | Usage | Grammar

Hello Garian, hello Rosie, hi David. Uh, so you've called me into the recording booth today? Yes, because uh, you have a bone to pick with me—just a little bit.

Yeah, so I have always, in my usage, I always drawn a distinction between less and fewer. I wouldn't say I'm one of those sticklers that goes around correcting signs at the grocery store checkout. You know, if it says like "15 items or less," I'm not going to take out like a black Sharpie and say "no fewer." But um, I do think that there is a distinction in usage between the two. But you told me that there is not as much as I would like to believe.

Look, I'm the last person that wants to needlessly subscribe to grammar superstitions, right? Right. Our job is to go around with our little needle of Truth and pop them. Yes, that's what I'm going to try to do, or I'm going to try to argue this. Okay, dislodge me from my purge.

All right, I'm going to make a broad statement to start with, and we can kind of dig into it. But my argument is that you can use less to mean or to refer to both countable items (count nouns) and to larger mass nouns, but you can only use fewer to refer to count nouns like "five items or fewer." But you couldn't say "fewer water."

So you are acknowledging that there is a difference? Oh definitely.

So, okay, so Rosie, what are count nouns and mass nouns? Good question. So count nouns are essentially nouns that you can count individually as an individual entity.

So an example between these two count nouns would be grains of sand. Okay, so I can count—not that I want to—grains of sand individually. But I guess what you're saying is I couldn't count sand. Sand, like let's say for some reason you and I were having a sand counting contest, plucking individual grains of sand from the beach with tweezers, putting them in a bucket.

I could say I have uh fewer grains of sand than you do, right? But I couldn't say I have fewer sand. Is that what you're saying? That is what I'm saying. Fewer just—it just doesn't—in standard English, it just doesn't go with the mass nouns. You know, fewer sand? "Fewer," I'm getting fewer sun than I used to. You would say I'm getting less sun than I used to, for example, if you're talking about being out in the sun.

Sure, versus hours of sun exposure, right? You could get fewer hours of sun exposure, but my argument—and this is where I think you and I differ—is that I believe you could also say I'm getting less hours of sun exposure. H. And the reason that I feel this way, okay, is that this trend, or this idea that fewer always has to go with a count noun, is really just—as far as I can figure—just a thing that some guy named Robert Baker wrote in this book.

What do you mean, some guy? He just—like, some dude invented it? He wasn't—he wasn't some guy, I guess. He was—he was at the time—he was sort of a front runner in terms of talking about language, and he wrote this book that was called "Reflections on the English Language" in 1770.

And what Robert Baker said in the book—and this is—I mean, people have looked at this and tried to trace the origins of this fewer/less issue with count nouns—and Robert Baker said this: "The word is most commonly used in speaking of a number where I should think 'fewer' would do better. 'No fewer than 100' appears to me not only more elegant than 'no less than 100' but strictly proper."

He did just kind of decide arbitrarily? He did! I mean, he's really stating his opinion here. He says, you know, appears to me not only more elegant than 'no less than 100,' but strictly proper.

Okay, so maybe the strictly proper sounds a little intimidating, but he's stating an opinion here. So he's talking about the word less? He's talking about the word less. The word less is most commonly used in speaking of a number, and he just thinks, I feel like fewer would do better.

So he's going on this gut impulse, which is, for the record, fine. It is fine, right? Like there's nothing— would you say there's anything ungrammatical about saying "there is fewer"? I get fewer sun. I guess not. It's just not the way that we speak in standard English; it's just style and culture, right, that dictates the way that we feel about words?

Right, and so I guess that's what I'm getting at. In standard English these days, we see less being used for both, um, to when referring to both count nouns and mass nouns, and I think that's fine.

Um, all right, yeah, I don't see any problem with that, especially since the only real reasoning that that anybody can find to go on is this one person's opinion from 1770. So I think we can say less to refer to countable items.

Um, and less—do you think that we're replacing one dude's opinion from 1770 with two people's opinion from the present? Like I get that that's a legitimate criticism that you could make, but what we're trying to say is that this reflects the way that language is commonly used and understood now.

Right, this isn't just the two of us making an arbitrary rule, which, by the way, Rosie, I'm now on your side. I am—I am bought. I buy into this. You can use less to refer to count nouns and mass nouns, but fewer only to refer to count nouns. I get that.

Um, because this actually reflects the way that these words are used in what is called the corpus of English—like the body of language that bounces around every day. Exactly! And the one exception that would say it comes back to this question of context and style that David and I have been talking about: if you're writing a formal paper, you probably want to use fewer to refer to count nouns.

Because in that context, I mean, that's still kind of what's on the books as the quote "right" way. Okay, so this is the more formal option? They're both correct, but this is more formal? Right, that I would say so.

Okay, well cool, thank you Rosie. Oh, you're welcome. I feel like I learned something today. Thank you for disabusing me of this superstition. Of course, uh, and thank you Garian. You can learn anything. David out. Rosie out.