PhD Productivity Strategy: Do Deep Work in Less Hours

Re:PhD Productivity Strategy: Do Deep Work in Less Hours by throwaway287391 on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @01:10PM (#15133907)

I don't think that's quite right. For example, hours can be non-integer-valued (as in "three and a half hours"). The distinction is that "less" is used only for mass nouns (e.g., "less water").

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Re:PhD Productivity Strategy: Do Deep Work in Less Hours by a_e_k on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @02:09PM (#15134518)

True, but as a heuristic I it is safe to say that if you'd use integer units to represent a quantity then you should use "fewer" rather than "less". That tends to capture the majority of cases for using "fewer". Admittedly, the discrete but non-integer-valued cases are a bit more nuanced.

(And yes, I do realize that the actual definition is in terms of mass vs. countable nouns.)

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Re:PhD Productivity Strategy: Do Deep Work in Less Hours by RhysU on Thursday August 31, 2017 @08:11AM (#15139716)

> mass vs. countable nouns

Into which bucket do grammar folks place countable infinites?

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Re:PhD Productivity Strategy: Do Deep Work in Less Hours by SubiculumCode on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @02:42PM (#15134777)

Or is it a difference only of being singular or plural?

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