Less & Fewer

Less (pronounced les)

(1) As an adverb or adjective, a comparative of little, with least as the superlative.

(2) To a smaller extent, amount, or degree.

(3) An emphasizer when conveying “most certainly not” (often preceded by much or still).

(4) In any way different; other (as in “nothing less than a scoundrel).

(5) Smaller in size, amount, degree, etc.; not so large, great, or much.

(6) Lower in consideration, rank, or importance; something inferior or not as important.

(7) A synonym for fewer, though subject to conventions of use.

(8) As the adjectival suffix –less, used to convey the meaning “without” (eg breathless), and in adjectives derived from verbs, indicating failure or inability to perform or be performed (eg tireless).

(9) When truncated as a conjunction, it means “unless” (increasingly rare but preserved in the forms of some rituals).

Pre 900: From the Middle English les, lesse, lease & lasse, from the Old English lǣs (adverb) & lǣssa (adjective) (less, lest) from the Proto Germanic laisiz (smaller, lesser, fewer, lower), from the primitive Indo-European leys- (to shrink, grow thin, become small, be gentle).  It was cognate with the Old Frisian lês (adverb) & lêssa (adjective) (less) and the Old Saxon lēs (less).  The Old English was a special use of lēas (free from, lacking, without, false) which was cognate with the Old Norse lauss and the German los & loose.  It existed also as –lās.  In Modern English, the verb and noun came respectively from the Middle English lessen and lesse, from the determiner.  The conjunction “less” indicating “unless” is now increasingly rare but preserved in the forms of some rituals.  It dates from the early fifteenth century, the extended contraction of lessen, “less'n” was a US dialectal form attested from 1881.  As an adverb, it’s often been used with negatives (eg none the less); “much less” (still more undesirable yet) dating from the 1630s.  It was formerly used to convey "younger," as a translation of the Classical Latin minor, but that’s now obsolete except in historic biblical use as “James the Less”, a translation often misleading for modern readers.

Fewer (pronounced fyoo-er)

(1) As an adjective, of a smaller number.

(2) As a pronoun (used with a plural verb), a smaller number:

(3) A synonym for less (but subject to conventions of use).

(4) The comparative degree of few; a smaller number.

Pre 900: The construct was few + -er.  Few was from the From Middle English fewe, from the Old English fēaw (few), from the Proto-Germanic fawaz (few), from the primitive Indo-European pehew- (few, small).  It was cognate with the Old Saxon fā (few), the Old High German fao & fō (few, little), the Old Norse fár (few), the Gothic faus (few) and the Latin paucus (little, few).  From paucus, English gained pauper, poor etc, the noun paucity, often used as a substitute for less & fewer.  Paucity, was in the early fifteenth century borrowed from the French paucite (smallness of quantity, scantiness), from the fourteenth century Old French paucité and directly from the Latin paucitatem, from paucitas (fewness, scarcity, a small number), from paucus (few, little), from the primitive Indo-European pau-ko-, a suffixed form of the root pau- (few, little).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought usually to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius and reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  The –er suffix was added to verbs to create a person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb; used to form an agent noun.  If added to a noun it usually denoted an occupation.

It was thought in Old English always to have been a plural form, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) basing this on “the analogy of the adverbial fela" which meant "many".  The phrase “few and far between” dates from the 1660s and is a use of the word as conventionally understood but there was also the quirky dialectical (north of England) use which is quite subversive: “a good few” which actually means “a good many”, noted in 1803 but presumed to have been long in use and spreading slowly from its regional origin.

Fewer was from the Middle English feue, feawe, fewe & fewere, from the Old English fēawera, genitive plural of fēawa (few) and later contracted to fea (not many, a small number; seldom, even a little), from the Proto-Germanic fawaz (source also of the Old Saxon fa, the Old Frisian fe, the Old High German fao, the Old Norse far & the Danish faa, from the primitive Indo-European root pau- (few, little).  The superlative was fewest.

Conventions of Use

Lindsay Lohan rendered with fewer freckles.

In many cases, “less” and “fewer” may without clumsiness be used interchangeably but, being English, there are exceptions so the mere avoidance of the clumsy may be a good a practice as the distinction in grammar, whether thought a rule or convention.  The rule, as usually explained, is to use “fewer” when referring to things which may be counted (ships, questions, restrictions et al) and less for stuff which can’t be reduced to a precise numerical value (love, hate, oxygen, stuff et al).  That sort of works in that “fewer” can be applied only to nouns but, “less” is often attached to both the uncountable and countable and with good reason: “twenty minutes or less” a better sentence that “twenty minutes or fewer” which is why “less” is so used with such frequency.  The best trick is to assess the clumsiness: there’s none in “twelve items or less” but “the cat is fewer playful than the kitten” is absurd so a fuzzier “rule” like “fewer means ‘not as many’ and less means ‘not as much’, while not bulletproof, is more helpful.  The grammar Nazis do take this seriously and sometimes demand the same diligence from others.  Not long ago, one UK supermarket chain responded to the many complaints received about "Ten Items or Less" and changed their check-out signage to “Up to Ten Items” although that may have excited the pedants to point out the ambiguity and demand Tesco make clear if that’s really “as many as ten items” or just a maximum of nine, 9 not quite up to 10.

Lindsay Lohan wearing less lingerie.

The intrusion of less where fewer probably belongs is not new, used this way since Old English and that was centuries ago.  The “rule” that aims to create a sharp distinction between “less” and “fewer” can be dated from 1770 when, in his Reflections on the English Language: In the Nature of Vaugelas's Reflections on the French, Robert Baker declared the expression “no fewer than a hundred” looked more elegant and was therefore correct English and his view proved influential; well before the turn of the twentieth century, the style and grammar guides now emphatic Mr Baker’s opinion was a rule.  It was of course never a rule but certainly was a useful convention of use to adopt: one which may now be summarized: (1) Fewer refers numbers of things and is used with count nouns. Less refers to quantities of things, and is generally used with mass nouns (fewer Calories, less sugar), (2) Less is also used to modify units of time, money, measurement, and other general statistics (fewer days, less time) and where a mass noun can become countable, fewer may be applied and (3), Less may also used for some specific constructions (2000 words or less).

The use of "less than" where the pedants would prefer "fewer than" is well-credentials and not just in this century.  The historian AJP Taylor (1906-1990), whatever his politics, not one with any fondness for new ways in the language, when discussing the casualty figures from the Great War, wrote that "Less than 1,500 civilians were killed by enemy action from sea or air" in English History 1914-1945.  That was published in 1965 yet within a decade, in his 1972 biography of Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964), "fewer than" had crept in.