I’ve always held that, since “fewer” refers to discrete quantities and “less” refers to continuous quantities, but the integers are a subset of the reals, using “less” when the grammar police would call for “fewer”, is less precise, but not wrong. Going the other way doesn’t work, though.
I’ve always held that, since “fewer” refers to discrete quantities and “less” refers to continuous quantities, but the integers are a subset of the reals, using “less” when the grammar police would call for “fewer”, is less precise, but not wrong. Going the other way doesn’t work, though.
Oh, yes, great point! It didn’t even occur to me to mention that you absolutely can’t say “this dessert has fewer sugar”.