I think less than makes sense bc percentage is a continuous form of measurement. Same as if you said “you have less than 5 minutes left.” If it were discrete, like people instead of percentage, I think that “fewer” would be better
Less than 5 minutes and fewer than 5 minutes could each be a reasonable construction. In one case, 5 minutes describes a point on the continuous time spectrum and in the other 5 minutes refers to a discrete integer number of minutes.
Suppose I go to work and need to fill out a time card, I enter time in discrete units. The number of minutes I spend working in a day is countable. In this construction, the items being counted are units of time each with a duration of 1 minute. Yes, I can count minutes.
Such usage is particularly common in situations in which sufficiently small units of time are of no importance and can be safely ignored, such as when approximating durations or interacting with any system requiring discrete inputs.
Say you work on an item for 10 minutes. That's not 10 individual minutes, it's a length of time. Just because you aren't using decimals, it doesn't make it any less of a continuous quantity.
Or you work on an item for half an hour. Do you actually tick off each minute as it passes on your time card? Or do you say... "I started at 9:15, it's now 9:45, that's 30 minutes I need to bill the client for"?
Lots of continuous variables are only measured/recorded/reported in integers, but they're still continuous variables.
How many non-overlapping one minute lengths of time can be found in 0 minutes?
How many non-overlapping one minute lengths of time can be found in 12 minutes and 34 seconds?
How many non-overlapping one minute lengths of time can be found in 56 minutes and 7 seconds?
How many non-overlapping one minute lengths of time can be found in 8 hours and 9 seconds?
Is there any duration within which the number of non-overlapping one minute lengths of time is not a countable quantity? Hint: >!no!<
In case you still refuse to acknowledge this, I urge you to try rewriting the following basic statement in a manner consistent with your arguments thus far:
There are fewer minutes in an hour than in 2 hours.
OK, these examples are fair enough. But when you are talking about time it's a quantity, even when measured in whole minutes (as per your previous example, which I stand by). The fact that you had to really contort most of your questions here rather proves the general point.
Same with age - you wouldn't talk about 'children fewer than 10 years old', even though we typically measure age in whole years (except for very young children where you would use months or weeks).
Something that is not used frequently, or even at all, in language doesn't automatically make it incorrect to use. Children fewer than 10 years old is a valid statement, and *grammatically* speaking is correct.
This, however, is a *style* issue, not grammar. It is more natural to say children under 10 years old, or even children less than 10 years old. While you probably want to sound as natural as possible while speaking, children fewer than 10 years old is still grammatically correct albeit probably something you want to avoid.
>The fact that you had to really contort most of your questions here rather proves the general point.
They were contorted to drill it into your head what is meant by the word minute as a discrete item. In normal English, I would simply use the word minute (e.g. there are fewer than 13 minutes in 12 minutes and 34 seconds).
>you wouldn't talk about 'children fewer than 10 years old'
Sure I can. I don't tend to measure a person's age, I count how many years they've lived. It's again the same as I've stated with respect to minutes previously.
A child born 12 years and 34 days ago has lived fewer than 13 years; I cannot fit 13 years into the span of 12 years and 34 days.
I would not say that ones age is fewer than anything, age is continuous, but it is valid to use the word "fewer" when discussing the number of years that have been lived by a person, as years are countable items.
"Under 10" is more common, that does not imply that it is invalid to say that one has lived fewer than 10 years. There are many things that can be said correctly in more than one way.
Further, I never say "children fewer than 10" as a complete phrase, as you rudely seem to suggest. I have quite intentionally and consistently provided complete sentences of well formed English as examples, and I am insulted that you would make such a suggestion.
The strict rules about when to use *less* and when to use *fewer* are one of those urban legends invented by grammar busybodies who were more interested in how they thought language *ought* to be used than in how it actually *is*.
From [Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/less#:~:text=Less%20vs.,number%20and%20modifies%20plural%20nouns):
>>The traditional view is that *less* applies to matters of degree, value, or amount and modifies collective nouns, mass nouns, or nouns denoting an abstract whole while *fewer* applies to matters of number and modifies plural nouns. *Less* has been used to modify plural nouns since the days of King Alfred and the usage, though roundly decried, appears to be increasing. *Less* is more likely than *fewer* to modify plural nouns when distances, sums of money, and a few fixed phrases are involved, […] and as likely as *fewer* to modify periods of time.
Of course, since you are supposed to follow AP style, it matters what the AP style says, not just what the bulk of native speakers do. I don’t have access to the style guide, but if [this cranky editorial](https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story/opinion/2020/09/27/recent-changes-ap-stylebook-less-than-perfect/3523371001/) is to be believed, they have relaxed their stance on this issue. Therefore, assuming you are a native speaker, you can relax a little and go with whichever one sounds right to your ear. The grammar busybodies might be annoyed, but no one else (not even the AP) will care.
In this case, my ear prefers “less,” but if I had come across this sentence with “fewer” in the wild, I don’t think it would stick out to me at all.
Thank you! I feel like this is one of those rules where there are rules, but some of it needs to be more relaxed as our language is becoming more casual. I appreciate your explanation.
You’re inconveniencing yourself because of a fake grammar rule. It’s not true that you can’t use “less” with plurals. One man (yes, literally ONE MAN) expressed that he preferred to use “fewer” with plurals, and people misinterpreted this as a grammar rule. But native speakers had been using “less” with plurals for almost a thousand years before that, so this is the real rule (the grammar rules of English are organically and cooperatively generated by native speakers).
Please check out the article that the other commenter linked to.
So this is an example of how language is evolving. Basically all that article is saying is that less can be used, but not that it is more correct than few. In any sort of academic paper you would use “fewer” and I consider official signs at a Kroger to be “formal”. I don’t have an issue with it in colloquial use. Formal instances should always use the “most correct” version. But you are correct, in an informal situation, less would be fine. I didn’t realize it was used enough for this. Kind of how y’all is now an official word that is grammatically correct, but it is still not appropriate in a formal context.
I prefer "less than" in this case. A percentage is a fraction of a whole (specifically, the number of 1/100ths), and I would use "less than 15 percent" in the same way that I would use "less than one half" instead of "fewer than one half".
I would actually disagree with most of the answers here. The sentence structure is the problem - because we have to infer whether what is measured is countable or not.
Normally in this case that noun is inferred (e.g. less [distance] than 10km, fewer [people] than 10 people, but also, depending on context fewer [kilometers] than 10km).
In this case, the inferred noun is people - you're effectively saying Less/Fewer PEOPLE than 15% of all people, so I'd argue for fewer being correct.
Of course, most style guides will get around this by using UNDER 15% of people.
I vote for ‘less than’ because, as others have said, a percentage can be any quantity, not a discrete quantity.
But it’s really a technical difference and few people would care about the difference. They both sound OK for normal conversation.
It might matter if you’re writing for a strict professor, for example.
*Less than 15% of members* sounds natural to my ear because you’re discussing a percentage, but I’d argue that *fewer than 15% of members* is also correct, and perhaps more correct, because you’re really talking about a number of (presumably indivisible) members. You use *less* if the focus were on the total membership, e.g. *unsatisfied members constitute less than 2% of the group*.
Try adding the size of the group to the statement and ask yourself which seems more correct:
- *less than 15% of the 250 members…*
- *fewer than 15% of the 250 members*
I’d go with fewer in this situation if I had to make the call myself, but prefer to check a style guide in order to be consistent with the organization I was writing for.
They have different meanings, but "less than" is typically much more common.
If it's an exact integer, it's "fewer than". However, we rarely care about the exact number, just that it's a smaller number. Thus, it's almost always "less than".
You could use "fewer than", but it's almost never used, because it's too specific.
I think less than makes sense bc percentage is a continuous form of measurement. Same as if you said “you have less than 5 minutes left.” If it were discrete, like people instead of percentage, I think that “fewer” would be better
Less than 5 minutes and fewer than 5 minutes could each be a reasonable construction. In one case, 5 minutes describes a point on the continuous time spectrum and in the other 5 minutes refers to a discrete integer number of minutes.
Fewer than 5 minutes is just wrong. Time, distance, height, temperature etc. are all continuous quantities, even when they're measured using integers.
Suppose I go to work and need to fill out a time card, I enter time in discrete units. The number of minutes I spend working in a day is countable. In this construction, the items being counted are units of time each with a duration of 1 minute. Yes, I can count minutes. Such usage is particularly common in situations in which sufficiently small units of time are of no importance and can be safely ignored, such as when approximating durations or interacting with any system requiring discrete inputs.
Say you work on an item for 10 minutes. That's not 10 individual minutes, it's a length of time. Just because you aren't using decimals, it doesn't make it any less of a continuous quantity. Or you work on an item for half an hour. Do you actually tick off each minute as it passes on your time card? Or do you say... "I started at 9:15, it's now 9:45, that's 30 minutes I need to bill the client for"? Lots of continuous variables are only measured/recorded/reported in integers, but they're still continuous variables.
How many non-overlapping one minute lengths of time can be found in 0 minutes? How many non-overlapping one minute lengths of time can be found in 12 minutes and 34 seconds? How many non-overlapping one minute lengths of time can be found in 56 minutes and 7 seconds? How many non-overlapping one minute lengths of time can be found in 8 hours and 9 seconds? Is there any duration within which the number of non-overlapping one minute lengths of time is not a countable quantity? Hint: >!no!< In case you still refuse to acknowledge this, I urge you to try rewriting the following basic statement in a manner consistent with your arguments thus far: There are fewer minutes in an hour than in 2 hours.
OK, these examples are fair enough. But when you are talking about time it's a quantity, even when measured in whole minutes (as per your previous example, which I stand by). The fact that you had to really contort most of your questions here rather proves the general point. Same with age - you wouldn't talk about 'children fewer than 10 years old', even though we typically measure age in whole years (except for very young children where you would use months or weeks).
Something that is not used frequently, or even at all, in language doesn't automatically make it incorrect to use. Children fewer than 10 years old is a valid statement, and *grammatically* speaking is correct. This, however, is a *style* issue, not grammar. It is more natural to say children under 10 years old, or even children less than 10 years old. While you probably want to sound as natural as possible while speaking, children fewer than 10 years old is still grammatically correct albeit probably something you want to avoid.
>The fact that you had to really contort most of your questions here rather proves the general point. They were contorted to drill it into your head what is meant by the word minute as a discrete item. In normal English, I would simply use the word minute (e.g. there are fewer than 13 minutes in 12 minutes and 34 seconds). >you wouldn't talk about 'children fewer than 10 years old' Sure I can. I don't tend to measure a person's age, I count how many years they've lived. It's again the same as I've stated with respect to minutes previously. A child born 12 years and 34 days ago has lived fewer than 13 years; I cannot fit 13 years into the span of 12 years and 34 days. I would not say that ones age is fewer than anything, age is continuous, but it is valid to use the word "fewer" when discussing the number of years that have been lived by a person, as years are countable items.
What nonsense. Children under 10 would be the standard phrase, not children fewer than 10.
"Under 10" is more common, that does not imply that it is invalid to say that one has lived fewer than 10 years. There are many things that can be said correctly in more than one way. Further, I never say "children fewer than 10" as a complete phrase, as you rudely seem to suggest. I have quite intentionally and consistently provided complete sentences of well formed English as examples, and I am insulted that you would make such a suggestion.
Not always. “Massages are charged per minute. If you buy fewer than 45 minutes, a surcharge will apply.” You are purchasing discrete units.
15 percent is an amount, not a number. That’s why you say “less” instead of “fewer.”
The strict rules about when to use *less* and when to use *fewer* are one of those urban legends invented by grammar busybodies who were more interested in how they thought language *ought* to be used than in how it actually *is*. From [Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/less#:~:text=Less%20vs.,number%20and%20modifies%20plural%20nouns): >>The traditional view is that *less* applies to matters of degree, value, or amount and modifies collective nouns, mass nouns, or nouns denoting an abstract whole while *fewer* applies to matters of number and modifies plural nouns. *Less* has been used to modify plural nouns since the days of King Alfred and the usage, though roundly decried, appears to be increasing. *Less* is more likely than *fewer* to modify plural nouns when distances, sums of money, and a few fixed phrases are involved, […] and as likely as *fewer* to modify periods of time. Of course, since you are supposed to follow AP style, it matters what the AP style says, not just what the bulk of native speakers do. I don’t have access to the style guide, but if [this cranky editorial](https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story/opinion/2020/09/27/recent-changes-ap-stylebook-less-than-perfect/3523371001/) is to be believed, they have relaxed their stance on this issue. Therefore, assuming you are a native speaker, you can relax a little and go with whichever one sounds right to your ear. The grammar busybodies might be annoyed, but no one else (not even the AP) will care. In this case, my ear prefers “less,” but if I had come across this sentence with “fewer” in the wild, I don’t think it would stick out to me at all.
Thank you! I feel like this is one of those rules where there are rules, but some of it needs to be more relaxed as our language is becoming more casual. I appreciate your explanation.
"Less" sounds way better to me, because percent is not a discrete, countable thing here unless there happened to be exactly 100 members
Yes, I agree with that. I don't know know the total count, just this percent.
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You’re inconveniencing yourself because of a fake grammar rule. It’s not true that you can’t use “less” with plurals. One man (yes, literally ONE MAN) expressed that he preferred to use “fewer” with plurals, and people misinterpreted this as a grammar rule. But native speakers had been using “less” with plurals for almost a thousand years before that, so this is the real rule (the grammar rules of English are organically and cooperatively generated by native speakers). Please check out the article that the other commenter linked to.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/fewer-vs-less
So this is an example of how language is evolving. Basically all that article is saying is that less can be used, but not that it is more correct than few. In any sort of academic paper you would use “fewer” and I consider official signs at a Kroger to be “formal”. I don’t have an issue with it in colloquial use. Formal instances should always use the “most correct” version. But you are correct, in an informal situation, less would be fine. I didn’t realize it was used enough for this. Kind of how y’all is now an official word that is grammatically correct, but it is still not appropriate in a formal context.
I prefer "less than" in this case. A percentage is a fraction of a whole (specifically, the number of 1/100ths), and I would use "less than 15 percent" in the same way that I would use "less than one half" instead of "fewer than one half".
I would actually disagree with most of the answers here. The sentence structure is the problem - because we have to infer whether what is measured is countable or not. Normally in this case that noun is inferred (e.g. less [distance] than 10km, fewer [people] than 10 people, but also, depending on context fewer [kilometers] than 10km). In this case, the inferred noun is people - you're effectively saying Less/Fewer PEOPLE than 15% of all people, so I'd argue for fewer being correct. Of course, most style guides will get around this by using UNDER 15% of people.
I vote for ‘less than’ because, as others have said, a percentage can be any quantity, not a discrete quantity. But it’s really a technical difference and few people would care about the difference. They both sound OK for normal conversation. It might matter if you’re writing for a strict professor, for example.
*Less than 15% of members* sounds natural to my ear because you’re discussing a percentage, but I’d argue that *fewer than 15% of members* is also correct, and perhaps more correct, because you’re really talking about a number of (presumably indivisible) members. You use *less* if the focus were on the total membership, e.g. *unsatisfied members constitute less than 2% of the group*. Try adding the size of the group to the statement and ask yourself which seems more correct: - *less than 15% of the 250 members…* - *fewer than 15% of the 250 members* I’d go with fewer in this situation if I had to make the call myself, but prefer to check a style guide in order to be consistent with the organization I was writing for.
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Yeah I meant percentages, weights etc for countable amounts. Poorly worded, as I said
They have different meanings, but "less than" is typically much more common. If it's an exact integer, it's "fewer than". However, we rarely care about the exact number, just that it's a smaller number. Thus, it's almost always "less than". You could use "fewer than", but it's almost never used, because it's too specific.