fewer, less

   "In the first four months of the year Rome s tourists were 700,000 less than in the corresponding period last year" (Guardian). Probably no other pair of words causes more problems, and with less justification, than less and fewer. The generally cited rule is that less applies to quantity and fewer to number. A rougher but more helpful guide is to use less with singular nouns (less money, less sugar) and fewer with plural nouns (fewer houses, fewer doctors). Thus the quotation above should be either "Rome's tourists [plural noun] were 700,000 fewer" or "the number [singular noun] of tourists was 700,000 less."

   An apparent exception to the rule can be seen here: ". . . but some people earn fewer than $750 a year" (Times). Although $750 is inarguably a plural sum, it functions as a singular. We see it as a totality, not as a collection of individual dollars. Thus the sentence should read "less than $750." In the same way it would be wrong to write, "He lives fewer than fifty miles from London" because fifty miles is being thought of as a total distance and not as fifty individual miles.

   Another problem worth noting occurs in this sentence: "Representatives have offered to produce the Sunday supplements on one fewer press than at present" (Times). Idiom, according to Bernstein, doesn't allow "one fewer press." You must make it either "one press fewer," which is more grammatical, or "one less press," which is more idiomatic.