Fewer versus less is the debate revolving around grammatically using the use words "fewer" and "less" correctly. According to prescriptive grammar, "fewer" should be used (instead of "less") with nouns for countable objects and concepts (discretely quantifiable nouns, or count nouns). According to this rule, "less" should be used only with a grammatically singular noun (including mass nouns). However, descriptive grammarians (who describe language as actually used) point out that this rule does not correctly describe the most common usage of today or the past and in fact arose as an incorrect generalization of a personal preference expressed by a grammarian in 1770.