"Less" or "fewer": Is there still a difference?

By Tim North

info@betterwritingskills.com
http://www.BetterWritingSkills.com

A correspondent of mine recently had this to say:

I'm appalled at the increasing use of less when fewer would be more appropriate. I was taught that if you could count them (people at a meeting) you used "fewer"; if you couldn't count it (sugar) you used "less."

It seems that the trend is to use less for everything. ...
I can't wrap myself around using "less" when "fewer" seems so right to me.

She asked me to comment.

The traditional rule is indeed to use "fewer" with things that can be counted. For example:

* Fewer than ten minutes remain.
* Fewer people go to church now.
* Fewer than a hundred tickets were sold.
* Drink fewer glasses of alchohol.

Traditional usage says that we use "less" in other situations.
For example:

* Less time remains.
* Church attendence is less than it was.
* Ticket sales were less than last year.
* Drink less alchohol.

It gets more complex though. The American Heritage Book of English Usage has this to add:

You can use "less than" before a plural noun that denotes a measure of time, amount, or distance: "less than three weeks", "less than $400", "less than 50 miles".