Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Ha! How much time have you got?
Shallow and pedantic is my speciality.
But for the sake of brevity I'll simply say that hearing (or reading) less in cases where fewer would be more appropriate is like driving an ice pick into my brain.
Yes...both are technically correct, but I have to fight the urge to be that guy whenever I hear it.
They’re not interchangeable.
They're not interchangeable. 'Fewer' is for countable nouns and 'less' is for aggregate nouns, just like 'how many' and 'how much'.
E.g:
Aggregate:
"How much sand? Less sand."
Countable:
"How many grains of sand? Fewer grains of sand."
Along with that, I'll add in "number" vs "amount":
Oh believe me, I know. I agree.
but the argument nowadays is that common usage dictates that both are now "acceptable", similar to how apparently "literally" now effectively means "figuratively" because everyone uses it.
We don’t have to accept it.
My stupid mental trick for keeping these straight: fewer potatoes means less mashed potatoes.