Today we’ll be talking about the adjectives LESS and FEWER which are the opposites of MUCH and MANY, so we use them if the number or amount of something is rather modest. So, when do we use LESS and when do we use FEWER?
We use LESS with noncount nouns.
There’s less water in a pond than in the sea.
We spend less time swimming than before.
There’s less grass on the banks than there used to be.
We use FEWER with count nouns.
There are fewer trees here than in a forest.
There are fewer rocks than a couple years ago.
There are fewer fish in the pond than when I was a kid.
We also use LESS with measurements.
The five or six bushes that you can see over here is much less than you could have expected.
The depth of the pond is less than 5 meters.
We needed less than three minutes to swim across the pond.
The rock weighs 50 kilograms less than I thought.
You can buy the pond for less than $20,000.
LESS is also used in mathematical expressions.
5 < 10 reads: five is LESS than 10
x <= 5 reads: x is LESS than or equal to 5
LESS is also often used instead of FEWER with count nouns although some people consider this use incorrect.
You should use 100 words or less to describe the pond.
I saw less than fifty trees on the banks.
With the numeral ONE you can use either, but they are usually in different order.
I saw one less tree than last year.
or
I saw one tree fewer than last year.
