"Less than" or "fewer than"?

[Melpomene]

Should it be "less than 28 days later" or "fewer than 28 days later"?

In theory "fewer than" is more correct, isn't it? But it doesn't sound quite right.

[prism]

I'm flattered, Cooroo.

It's all very irritating- if we're going to have different words for "

[Cooroo]

That's an interesting line of enquiry... off to google!

[WMittens]

yep agree with chugnut cos apparently time and money are uncountable - which is odd as we spend a lot of time counting them. but there ya go.

You're confusing a thing being countable, and a continuous thing whose units of measurement are countable.

[burberryqueen]

no i am not confused at all, pounds you could count obvs.

[prism]

Yes, pounds can be counted, as can pennies, days, months etc. But that's not to say that there isn't a difference between a number of items and a quantity of something; money, time etc. So if you're asking "How many pound coins do I need to operate this machine?" the answer could be "Fewer than 10", whereas if my DD, with a tenner in her pocket, asks that well-known rhetorical question "How much will I need to buy lunch?" the correct (grammatically as well as parentally) answer is "Less than ten pounds". Just as it would be if she had £10.50 in her pocket, when it would be "Less than £10.50", except in that case it's more obvious that only the word "less" can be used, and you don't get sucked into faux-pedantry by the juicy option of saying "Fewer than £10".