Grammar Police

I was finally able to put the less than/fewer than problem to rest (in my own mind anyway) a while back. There was this kind of kooky guy that used to hang out at the Frog and Peach. He was this German guy who looked like a bum, with wide-eyed owlish glasses peering through a thick matte of hair and huge bushy beard. He didn't stink nearly as bad as he looked, and he was brilliant in a spoke-5-languages-and-sit-in-the-back-sipping-Coca-cola-and-doing-the-NYT-crossword-puzzle kinda way. Norbert was his name. He was like a living walking Google savant.


Anyway, he was interesting to talk to and one time we got into the less than/fewer than thing. He broke it all down as follows: "The 'Scoop' Theory"


The Scoop Theory sez if the quantity being described is something you can "scoop up"(ie a percentage or some general duration of time), you use less than. If the quantity is something you can "pick up"(ie, part of a series of numbers or items) you use fewer than.


Thus, you would say "less than half" the students passed the test, but "fewer than 50 out of 100" did so.

Or a team won "less than 75% of its games" but "fewer than 75 out of 100."

Or "less than a year," but "fewer than 365 days."

Or "Less than a millennium," but "fewer than 1000 years."




It's still debatable, of course (particularly in my family), but The Scoop Theory helped clear it up a bit for me. Funny I'd hear about it from someone who learned English as a 2nd language.