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Fewer than / Less than.

9 replies

Grumpyoldpersonwithcats · 04/04/2024 08:45

I'm normally irritated by the use of 'less' where it should be 'fewer'. I'm sharing the error below for variety.
A quote from the BBC website this morning.
Dnipro, which is fewer than 100km (62 miles) from the front line...

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MoleAtTheCounter · 04/04/2024 09:12

If something can be counted - fewer.

If something cannot be counted but can be measured - less.

Confusing them is a common mistake.

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MontyDonsBlueScarf · 04/04/2024 09:28

Ooh interesting. I confess I had to look this one up. It seems that 'fewer than 100km' and 'less than 100km' are both correct but they mean different things. Similar to one of my favourites 'fewer ingredients' and 'less ingredients'.

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ASighMadeOfStone · 07/04/2024 15:43

We don't usually use "fewer" with distances, time, lengths, weights etc. Or when the total of the items is semantically present. (that's the reason why the 5 items or less thing was never wrong!)

Fewer- countable
Less- uncountable

Is only the very basic grammar rule with lots and lots of exceptions once you've gone beyond the apples and sugar examples.

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dudsville · 16/06/2024 18:51

@Grumpyoldpersonwithcats ,@ASighMadeOfStone ,@MoleAtTheCounter ,@MontyDonsBlueScarf apologies for posting on an old thread, I am doing a Sunday evening deep dive into pedants' corner and came across this thread. This one has been bugging me for a few months. To me it is as if the world has suddenly learned something and switched these words out just in the past few months, but I can't work it out. What can't be counted?

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Grumpyoldpersonwithcats · 16/06/2024 19:13

@dudsville
The easiest illustration is with money.
If you have five pound coins and I have four pound coins, then I have fewer pound coins than you (one fewer).
However I have less money than you have because a pound is divisible into smaller amounts and as four pounds is less than five pounds, four pounds 37p is also less than five pounds.
So coins are countable, money is not.
Distance, liquids and weight are not 'countable' (unless in defined objects e.g. pint bottles of milk, 1kg weights etc.)
'10 items or less' at the supermarket checkout is incorrect because the items are countable.
This isn't new, I had this drummed into me at school about fifty years ago.

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CelesteCunningham · 16/06/2024 19:19

I'm no expert (you need @ASighMadeOfStone for that), but my understanding is that the countable Vs uncountable distinction was decided on by one random person and isn't a hard and fast rule. It's a good rule of thumb to determine which is more commonly used, but it's not a case of correct and incorrect.

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MontyDonsBlueScarf · 16/06/2024 19:28

@dudsville 'Sunday evening deep dive into pedants' corner' oh the joys of long summer evenings....

Countable essentially means can you point at it and go 'that's one, that's two' etc. Water can be measured but it's not countable. You don't have one water, two waters etc. So you can have less water but not fewer water. You can, however, have fewer bottles of water because you can count the bottles.

With some things it depends on the context. If you're making a cake the recipe will have a certain number of ingredients - eggs, milk, flour etc. If you only want a half size cake, you'd use the same number of ingredients but less of each of them. If you're making a cake the same size but leaving out the vanilla essence, you'd be using fewer ingredients. 'Less ingredients' and 'fewer ingredients' can both be correct but they mean completely different things.

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Shinyandnew1 · 16/06/2024 19:31

Or when the total of the items is semantically present. (that's the reason why the 5 items or less thing was never wrong!)

Can you explain why? (Slowly 😂!!)