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Tanit Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

less/fewer than

0 Hi,02br
02br
00I thought I knew the difference between less and fewer, but I'm now confused because I thought that "fewer" was the correct word here:02br
02br
01i01span00Less than 0.7 hectares02span02i00 / 01i01span00fewer than 0.7 hectares02span02i02br
01i01span00Less than 2.5 hectares02span02i00 / 01i01span00fewer than 2.5 hectares02span02i02br
02br
00I did a search on universities' and governments' websites, because I'm interested in formal written English (it's for an article I'm writing), and here are the results: 02br
02br
00"Less than * hectares": 05100, 05202br
00"Fewer than * hectares": 05300, 05402br
02br
01i00Less 02i00outnumbers 01i00fewer 02i00by 23 to 1 and 29 to 1 respectively! 02br
00Which would you choose? (prescriptive answers are welcome! 05000)02br
02br
00Many thanks!010id1241c647 results in universities' websites242c473 in governments' websites243c28 results in universities' websites244c16 in governments' websites
  

Top answer

0 Hi Tanit,02br 00prescriptivism is not for me, but I can be prescriptive on demand! 05002br 02br 00Yes, in theory it should be fewer, but only if you really want to refer to "hectares", which is plural and countable. But as you know (hopefully you do know, lol), quantities followed by plural units of measurement are often considered as uncountable, taking account of the total amount and leaving aside the plurality of the units of measurement.

— Kooyeen

  • 0 Hi Tanit,02br 00prescriptivism is not for me, but I can be prescriptive on demand!
  • 05002br 02br 00Yes, in theory it should be fewer, but only if you really want to refer to "hectares", which is plural and countable.
  • But as you know (hopefully you do know, lol), quantities followed by plural units of measurement are often considered as uncountable, taking account of the total amount and leaving aside the plurality of the units of measurement.
  • Now, the problem is...
  • I can't give you a good example, because I still have trouble with this too!
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13 Answers
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0 Hi Tanit,02br
00prescriptivism is not for me, but I can be prescriptive on demand! 05002br
02br
00Yes, in theory it should be fewer, but only if you really want to refer to "hectares", which is plural and countable. But as you know (hopefully you do know, lol), quantities followed by plural units of measurement are often considered as uncountable, taking acco
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0Generally, we can use this rule:02br
00Countable – use fewer 02br
00Non-countable – use less.02br
02br
00John’s 00 00car costs a lot less 05000 to maintain than Paul’s02br
00John’s car costs a few less dollars to maintain.02br
02br
00X gas station charges a few ( a few suggests countable) 00cents less
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0
0 Hi K.!02br
02br
00To learn that you can be prescriptive has been a great surprise! I thought you enjoyed learning rules only to come up with a clever way of breaking them!05001blockquote
01cite10Kooyeen12cite10 But as you know (hopefully you do know, lol), quantities followed by plural units of measurement are often considered
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0
0 Hi Goodman, 02br
02br
00Your post was not there when I posted yesterday, so let me thank you for replying. 02br
02br
00As I wrote earlier, I know the general use of 01i00less/fewer02i00. 02br
00What was bothering me was whether 01i01span00less 02span02i00
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0Tanit, don't worry! Several months ago I came to a standstill because I instinctively "knew" that is should be less but felt like it was violating the countable rule. It was my friends here to provided a link to the same reference that reminded me that distance, area, and time could be thought of as one until (a journey of less than ten miles, etc.) So every once in a while, natives get flummox
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0 Hi Tanit,02br
00I never break prescriptive rules, because they don't exist! 05001blockquote
01cite10Tanit12cite11b10Edited English12b10 still follows the basic pattern rigorously, however, 11b10except in...12b12blockquote
10...and there are some exceptions. But then they say:0
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0 Hi Tanit02br
02br
00Here is the usage note from the American Heritage Dictionary:01blockquote
00The traditional rule holds that 11i10fewer12i10 should be used for things that can be counted (11i10fewer than four players12i10), while 11i10less12i10 should be used with mass terms for thing
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0Thank you all. Your suggestions have been really helpful. 050010id1
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1i00less02i00 has been used with count nouns for 1000 years. The prescription against this usage has no foundation. 05000 from Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage.0240hrefhttp://books.google.com/books?id=2yJusP0vrdgC&pg=PA592&vq=less+fewer&dq=merriam+webster%27s+dictionary+of+english+usage&source=gbs_search_s&sig=4dQSgyAb93zb7UXFgapU6IZGupUcExamples
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Tanit12cite10"Less than * hectares": 15110, 15212br
10"Fewer than * hectares": 15310, 15412blockquote
10I would imitate the usage of the majority here, and for all cases of measurements. I don't think it's necessary to take an extremely conservative path for these even in form
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