Em Rule

Confused about when to use less or fewer?

There’s a rule in English that we treat countable nouns and uncountable nouns differently. This comes into play for fewer and less.

If we’re talking about countable nouns – things you can count – we use fewer:

• ten items or fewer (we can count the items)
• fewer animals
• fewer people
• fewer tax increases
• fewer sunshine hours.

If we’re talking about uncountable nouns – things that you can’t count, or you’d usually measure – we use less:

• less milk
• less rain
• less climate change
• less pain
• less sunshine.

 So for comparison, you might say:

• less milk, but fewer milk bottles
• less in your trolley, fewer items.