HI718{"id":719,"date":"2021-09-01T11:31:34","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T11:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/?p=719"},"modified":"2026-04-29T11:26:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:26:00","slug":"fewer-vs-less-simple-tips-to-remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/fewer-vs-less-simple-tips-to-remember\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cFewer\u201d vs. \u201cLess\u201d- Simple Tips to Remember"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Fewer vs Less<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><mark class=\"bs-highlight bs-highlight-default\">If the noun being measured is countable, like bowls of rice or chocolate bars, use <em><strong>fewer<\/strong><\/em>.<\/mark><\/p>\n<p><mark class=\"bs-highlight bs-highlight-default\">If the noun cannot be counted, like rice or chocolate, use <em><strong>less<\/strong><\/em>.<\/mark><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Last year\u2019s drought has left the region with ________ food sources.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What should be used here? <em>Fewer <\/em>or <em>less<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>While both the words clearly convey the lack of abundance or sufficiency, choosing the right one is a challenge!<\/p>\n<p>Well,\u00a0 a popular rule-of-thumb offers some help.<\/p>\n<p><em>If the noun being measured is countable, like <u>bowls<\/u> of rice or chocolate <u>bars<\/u>, use <strong>fewer.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We need to serve<em> fewer<\/em> <em>bowls<\/em> of rice.<\/li>\n<li>The chef used <em>fewer chocolate bars<\/em> while making the cupcakes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>If the noun cannot be counted, like <u>rice<\/u> or <u>chocolate<\/u>, use <strong>less.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We need to serve<em> less<\/em> <em>rice<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>The chef used <em>less chocolate<\/em> while making the cupcakes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Though this guideline appears to be an ultimate savior, the English language is full of nuances that cannot be ignored. Let us look at some exceptions that defy this rule.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Time, Money, Distance and Weight<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All the four entities are countable in terms of their units (e.g., minutes, dollars, miles, pounds, kilograms). So, according to the rule, we must use <em>fewer<\/em>. However, we choose <em>less <\/em>when talking about time, money, distance or weight because they are thought of as amounts rather than numbers.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He makes <em>less <\/em>than $1000 a month from his business.<\/li>\n<li>I have <em>less<\/em> than three years left for my next promotion.<\/li>\n<li>The new resort is located <em>less<\/em> than 5 miles from here.<\/li>\n<li>Most premature babies weigh <em>less<\/em> than 2.5 kg.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Using <em>fewer<\/em> instead of <em>less<\/em> in these examples should not be a problem, but it would make the sentence sound awkward to the reader. For instance, \u2018Most premature babies weigh <em>fewer<\/em> than 2.5 kg\u2019. Quite odd, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Percentage<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While <em>percentage<\/em> itself is a representation of a measurement, using <em>fewer<\/em> or <em>less <\/em>depends on what\u2019s being measured.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Fewer<\/em> than 5% of the farmers opted for the new agricultural policy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Counting the number of farmers is definitely not an easy task, but it sure is possible. Hence, when talking about percentages of countable things, we use <em>fewer<\/em>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The sample contains <em>less<\/em> than 20% water as compared to the standard.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here, water cannot be counted. So, for such percentages, we use <em>less<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Importance in Academic writing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/\">academic writing<\/a>, authors usually compare entities, properties, trends, or data using comparative adjectives like <em>fewer<\/em> and <em>less<\/em>. Hence, learning to correctly use these words is imperative.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, the rules discussed above are all applicable in academic writing as well.<\/p>\n<p>Let us see how.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Incorrect<\/strong>: The cells were <em>less <\/em>and smaller than those in the condylar cartilage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Correct<\/strong>: The cells were <em>fewer<\/em> and smaller than those in the condylar cartilage.<\/p>\n<p>Cells are very small biological units, but they are still countable. Hence, <em>fewer<\/em> is used for cells.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Incorrect<\/strong>: The difference was <em>fewer<\/em> significant for CR duration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Correct<\/strong>: The difference was <em>less<\/em> significant for CR duration.<\/p>\n<p><em>Significance<\/em> cannot be counted but can be compared. So, <em>less<\/em>, and not <em>fewer<\/em>, is the correct word choice for comparing significance.<\/p>\n<p>Now you know that <em>fewer<\/em> and <em>less<\/em> are among those rare English words that lay importance on how the sentence sounds and not just on a textbook rule! So trust your ears, practice regularly and move a step closer to error-free writing!<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fewer vs Less &#8211; If the noun being measured is countable, like bowls of rice or chocolate bars, use fewer. If the noun cannot be counted, like rice or chocolate, use less.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[176,17],"acf":[],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/26.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1064,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions\/1064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}