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And you fucked up because you were thinking about this, right?Eat shit.
“According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, a usage guide that looks carefully at the history of usage advice, the rule creating a clear separation for lessand fewer was invented in 1770 by Rober Baker in his book Reflections on the English Language, where he wrote in a comment on less:
Baker’s remarks about fewerexpress clearly and modestly—“I should think,”, “appears to me”—his own taste and preference. It is instructive to compare Baker with one of the most recent college handbooks in our collection:
Fewer refers to quantities that can be counted individually.… Less is used for collective quantities that are not counted individually… and for abstract characteristics. —Trimmer & McCrimmon 1988
Notice how Baker’s preference has here been generalized and elevated to an absolute status, and his notice of contrary usage has been omitted. This approach is quite common in handbooks and schoolbooks; many pedagogues seem reluctant to share the often complicated facts about English with their students.
How Baker’s opinion came to be an inviolable rule, we do not know. But we do know that many people believe it is such.