Less vs. Fewer

I was an English major in college. I had heard somewhere that college students have to read a lot of books during their four years, so I figured it would be best if I read books that were written to be read. While that did serve a good purpose, I also double-majored in Interdepartmental Sciences, which was the pre-med major at my college (Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va.).

Nevertheless, I truly enjoyed my English major, reading books and poems extending from Chaucer through Joyce. It also helped me during my academic surgical career, as I had learned excellent writing skills and was able to generate a number of publications as a result.

Consequently, I have also developed an innate sense of proper English grammar whenever I hear an individual speaking. I am especially annoyed when I hear poor grammar being used, especially by individuals who are noted to be well-educated.

At the current time, for example, some notable individual will talk about how we must work on having less illegal immigrants coming across the border, confusing the terms “less” and “fewer”. The proper phrase should be “on having fewer illegal immigrants”.

The term”less” refers a relative quantity of something, such as “less food” or “less money”, but not enumerated entities. The term “fewer” applies to entities that can be counted. Thus, in a discussion of reducing the movement of a massive hoard of people, it is more appropriate to speak of allowing fewer people to cross a border illegally.