There are some tricky ones, though.
- What about money? Everyone would agree that you can count money, right? Well, it turns out that you can’t. You can count coins and banknotes, but money you can’t count.
- The same goes for luggage: You can count individual bags and suitcases, but not the complete luggage.
- And as a last example, you can’t count coffee. You can count cups of coffee, but not the coffee itself.
So, after you’ve understood this, let’s get back to our quantifiers.
Much or many
We use much with uncountable nouns and many with countable ones.
I don’t have much time today.
I have so many little things to do.
Little or few
We use little with uncountable nouns and few with countable ones.
I have little patience with people who believe the earth is flat.
Fortunately, few people believe that.
Less or fewer
This is really just a different degree of little and few, so it works exactly the same: We use less with uncountable nouns and fewer with countable ones.
I wish I could spend less time working.
I would like to spend fewer hours at my desk.
More
This is the odd one in the bunch: Like less and fewer, it is a different degree of much and many. But in this case, we can use the word for countable and uncountable nouns.
My husband tells me I should eat more meat.
But I think he is wrong. I think I should eat more vegetables.