Fewer versus less

In addition, "less" is sometimes recommended in front of counting nouns that denote distance, amount, or time.

[3] The comparative less is used with both countable and uncountable nouns in some informal discourse environments and in most dialects of English.

Many supermarket checkout line signs, for instance, will read "10 items or less"; others, however, will use fewer in an attempt to conform to prescriptive grammar.

Descriptive grammarians consider this to be a case of hypercorrection as explained in Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage.

"[12][failed verification] The Cambridge Guide to English Usage notes that the "pressure to substitute fewer for less seems to have developed out of all proportion to the ambiguity it may provide in noun phrases like less promising results".