They are NOT equally “correct.” They are, however, these days, used interchangeably. In some future time, when we have managed to totally bastardize our quite eloquent language, they may both be equally “correct.”
In short, saying “ten items or less” is not grammatically correct, but you will be understood, and most won’t notice your error. Saying “ten items or fewer” will be mostly correct (better would be ‘fewer than 10 items’), but many will look at the sign quizzically, wondering who was being so stuffy with their language… :o
I’ve still not seen a clear, unambiguous, and universally applicable rule expressed on this board. I think I have it, though:
Rule: When you are choosing between saying “fewer X” or “less X” for some word “X,” if “X” is in the plural, then use “fewer,” while if X is in the singular, use “less.”
Analogous rules for usages like “ten or less” or “ten or fewer,” can easily be constructed.
Sorry, Poly, but you’re wrong here. Calories are grammatically plural, just as gallons or yards are, even when they’re measure something that is not, itself, physically divided into discrete parts.
Are they not equally correct just because you say so? Do you know that less has been used to describe denumerable/countable nouns since at least 888AD according to OED (link requires registration, sorry)
How can something be grammatically correct, but widely understood and most won’t notice the ‘error’? What exactly is your definition of grammatical?
In the quote from Funk, the two examples are meant to contrast the incorrect usage of less with the correct usage of fewer. It didn’t quite carry over in the formatting; see the link I gave to understand what was being done. <sigh>
True, “calories” is a plural noun, and good oranges have a tart, sweet taste. Neither of which have anything to do with substance vs. object.
Gallons, calories, yards, etc., are quasi-arbitrary units of measure. They describe the measurement of a substance of which you may have a given quantity, or more or less than that quantity.
On the other hand, dozen, score, myriad, etc., are nouns that quantify countable objects. One may have more or fewer objects than the quantification.
“Though Dalmatia is a narrow coastal region with very little land area, it produced slightly less than half of Yugoslavia’s annual wine production. The Dalmatian dialect, however, is nearly extinct; fewer than 100 people still speak it.” It matters not whether the wine is measured in gallons, hogsheads, litres, standard-size glasses, or Old Latvian mirkeks. The people, however, are individuals who can be counted.
My point was to show that in 1918, there was an almost absolute prohibition given to the misuse of “less”, whereas you will see that later style manuals talk about it as a question of “proper” versus “popular” usage.
Lot’s of people use the contraction “amn’t”, except they use an improper form of it (I leave it as an exercise for the reader to know what form). It ain’t right to do so, no matter how many people do it.
