You want to always remember the difference between “fewer” and “less”?
Here’s the trick: Fewer snowflakes, less snow.
This is not original, and I wish I could remember where I read this nifty quote so I could properly express my appreciation to its creator, but all I know is that I read it years ago, and it stuck.
Fewer snowflakes, less snow.
You can count “snowflakes,” but you can’t count “snow,” so use “fewer” with things you can count, and “less” with things that are uncountable.
A sentence like this, for example, is totally incorrect:
He is one of less than 60 professionals worldwide to hold both designations.
Here we even have a precise number in the mix, and the author still got it wrong. “Professionals” can be counted. This person is trying to establish that he (or she!) is so very special, so very rarefied, that there are fewer than 60 people like him (or her!) in the whole, entire, total, complete WORLD, and still he (or she!) makes this glaring grammatical error. Well, it wasn’t a big surprise, considering this person’s website also featured the NUMBER ONE mistake in American English:
…leadership isn’t something you do, its someone you become.
Naturally, the material featured in this description is based on this person’s “best-selling book.”
Isn’t amazing that all these supposed, self-professed “best-selling” authors—all of whom, of course, are writing about leadership— just can’t write their way out of a paper sack??
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