Should it be "less than half" or "fewer than half"?

Question

old know all, avondrow: yes both of those are thoughts I have, but I'm not sure which is correct

to the idiots who answered: why bother?

Answer 1

Less if it is a measure."Less than half a cup"

Fewer if it is a quantity."Fewer than a half dozen"

Answer 2

yae

Answer 3

**** you

Answer 4

It depends on the context. You can have less than half of something, but if you are refering to a collection, it would be fewer; 'I drank less than half the bottle', 'Fewer than half the expected number of people turned up'.

Answer 5

It depends on the question.  What is the amount, and of what are you asking?  If it is a liquid, then it is less than half, and if it is something like marbles-then it is fewer than half.

Answer 6

Less than.

Answer 7

less than half

Answer 8

Does it really matter? It pretty much means the same thing.

Answer 9

Avondrow is correct, and technically, that is the only answer even if people, wrongly, use the two terms interchangably.  If it is water in a glass, the glass is less than half full.  If we are talking about multiple objects, e.g. the dollar bills in our respective wallets, you have fewer dollars than me.

As per your "marriage" question, marriages is a plural group of seperate entities, so "fewer than half".

Answer 10

fewer than half does not make any sense now does it? so less than half. keep smileing ;)

Answer 11

Less.

Answer 12

Less where I come from.

Less than half turned up.

Fewer than expected came.

Answer 13

Fewer refers to a discrete quantity.

So fewer than four can only be 0,1,2 or 3

Less than four could be 2.5, 1.43201, pi, or √3

So if you're referring to something divided, less than half (less than half a pint).  If you're referring to something shared, fewer than half (fewer than half of the apples)

Answer 14

Both.

But better English is less than half,

Please answer mine! :

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