Oh, HPV awareness ad.... It's not hard to use "less" and "fewer" correctly. Here you go:
If you can count them, you've got "fewer."For instance:If you can't count it, you've got "less."
I have fewer leprosy symptoms than you do; consequently, I have less discomfort than you do.
I not only have less milk in my glass than I did a minute ago, but I also have fewer cartons of milk in my refrigerator than I did before the hockey team arrived.
Express Lane: 10 Items or Fewer. (No, really. It should be "fewer." Every time. Fewer).You know who, besides the HPV prevention lobby, doesn't know the difference between "less" and "fewer"? Justin Bieber.
His song title "One Less Lonely Girl" is ambiguous -- if it were about one girl who were made, by the ministrations of Mr. Bieber, to feel less lonely, than the title would be correct (although some grammatical authorities might recommend a hyphen to make the meaning clear: One Less-Lonely Girl).
However, I listened to this song. After suffering an acne outbreak, I discovered that Mr. Bieber really meant "fewer"; as evidence, he says, "I'll take her and leave the world with one less lonely girl." In sum, I now have less respect for whoever is claiming to homeschool Justin Bieber; I hope this advice will result in fewer Justin Bieber fans. That itself should result in fewer cases of HPV.
