Fewer vs. Less—Explanation and Examples

Linguistic prescriptivists usually say that fewer and not less should be used with countable nouns, and that less should be used only with uncountable nouns.

2013年1月16日 — In sum, the traditional rule has been that with countable nouns you use “fewer”; with uncountable nouns you use “less.” (A very similar rule ...

2020年10月22日 — According to usage rules, FEWER is only to be used when discussing countable things, while LESS is used for singular mass nouns. For example, ...

2019年5月17日 — Fewer means “not as many.” We use fewer with countable nouns like cookies. Cookie Monster was told to eat fewer cookies. Less means “not as much ...

2016年5月31日 — Use “less” with uncountable nouns and “fewer” with countable ones. The next time you see an advertisement that says “contains less calories,” ...

When deciding between “fewer” vs. “less,” remember that the word “fewer” describes countable items and “less” describes uncountable items.

7 天前 — Fewer is the comparative form of few. Less and fewer with a noun. We usually use less with uncountable nouns. We use fewer with plural nouns:.

The use of less to modify ordinary plural count nouns (as in made less mistakes) is pretty rare in writing and is usually better avoided, though it does occur ...

We use fewer with countable nouns when we compare two things, to say that one thing is smaller in number than another thing. I have fewer books than you. There ...

Fewer and less are often used incorrectly. There's a popular rule that teaches fewer is for countable nouns and less is for uncountable nouns. But this rule has ...