Have you ever seen that sign at the grocery store counter that reads “ten items or less” and sputtered, “It should say ‘ten items or fewer!’” and had your monocle fall off in a spasm of ...

You probably see it every time you make a grocery run: the Express lane, with its sign inviting shoppers with “ten items or less.” Despite how widespread it is, though, this phrase is actually ...

“Less” applies to unspecific quantities such as “less dumb content in the Aspen Times.” “Fewer” would apply to “fewer dumb stories in the Aspen Times.” Assistant Editor’s note: Lots of emails, too, on ...

English is a difficult language to master because it has many rules. Take “less” and “fewer,” for example. Both words mean that a quantity is diminished in size, but they are not interchangeable if ...

Not long ago, I caught a snippet of a radio report about flooding in Colorado. Here’s the first sentence I heard: “The number has dropped to fewer than 600 missing.” When people use the word “fewer” ...

The difference between less and fewer was one of the first issues to come on my radar as a beginning copy editor. Unfortunately, I learned it wrong, as I found out a few years later. Even more ...

The words fewer and less both suggest a smaller amount, but they are used differently depending on what you are counting. A simple rule helps: if you can add numbers to it, use fewer; if you measure ...