Fewer versus less


Fewer versus less is the debate revolving around grammatically using the use words "fewer" and "less" correctly. According to prescriptive grammar, "fewer" should be used with nouns for countable objects and concepts. According to this rule, "less" should be used only with a grammatically singular noun. However, descriptive grammarians point out that this rule does not correctly describe the most common usage of today or the past and in fact arose as an incorrect generalization of a personal preference expressed by a grammarian in 1770.
This rule can be seen in the examples "there is less flour in this canister" and "there are fewer cups of flour in this canister", which are based on the reasoning that flour is uncountable whereas the unit used to measure the flour is countable. Nevertheless, even most prescriptivists accept the most common usage "there are less cups of flour in this canister" and prescribe the rule addition that "less" should be used with units of measurement. Prescriptivists would, however, consider "fewer cups of coffee" to be correct in a sentence such as "there are fewer cups of coffee on the table now", where the cups are countable separate objects. In addition, "less" is recommended in front of counting nouns that denote distance, amount, or time. For example, "we go on holiday in fewer than four weeks" and "he can run the 100 m in fewer than ten seconds" are not advised.
Some prescriptivists argue that even the extremely rare and completely unidiomatic "one fewer" should be used instead of "one less", but Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage clearly states that common usage dictates "one less" in all cases.

Current usage

The comparative less is used with both countable and uncountable nouns in some informal discourse environments and in most dialects of English. In other informal discourse however, the use of fewer could be considered natural. Many supermarket checkout line signs, for instance, will read "10 items or less"; others, however, will use fewer in an attempt to conform to prescriptive grammar. However, descriptive grammarians consider this to be a case of hypercorrection as explained in Pocket Fowler’s Modern English Usage. A British supermarket chain replaced its "10 items or less" notices at checkouts with "up to 10 items" to avoid the issue. 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", and a study of online usage seems to suggest that the distinction may, in fact, be semantic rather than grammatical. Likewise, it would be very unusual to hear the unidiomatic "I have seen that film at fewest ten times."
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.

Historical usage

Less has always been used in English with countable nouns. Indeed, the application of the distinction between less and fewer as a rule is a phenomenon originating in the 18th century. On this, Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage notes:
The oldest use that the Oxford English Dictionary gives for less with a countable noun is a quotation from 888 by Alfred the Great:
This is in fact an Old English partitive construction using the "quasi-substantive" adverb læs and the genitive worda . When the genitive plural ceased to exist, less of words became less words, and this construction has been used since then until the present.