Nails on a chalkboard? Really? It’s this prescriptivist claptrap that makes me want to flip over tables. I could literally care fewer about your completely arbitrary distinctions, so riddled with exceptions that they are too numerous to count, and which serve no purpose whatsoever other than to mark yourself as a privileged, educated speaker. I’d like to see one example of how the (entirely made-up) distinction between less and fewer has ever led to any misunderstanding in comprehension. Thank god there were no prescriptivists around when Shakespeare and Chaucer were writing, otherwise they probably would have thrown up their hands and packed it in, and our language would be nowhere as robust and diverse as it is today. But the good news is that your petty rules never last, and one day kids who love language will look back in amusement at what people cared about back in the bad old days.
My favorite t-shirt:
Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat**,** Grandma.
Commas save lives!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzjwXp1xmBo
(Stop at 0:22)
What other reason IS there to speak “prescriptively?” 
I frequently use “that” instead of “who” cause I’m trying to disguise the fact I can never figure out subject/object / who/whom. Evidently this has not been an entirely successful strategy.
If the person is doing it, use “who”. (subject)
If it is being done to the person, use “whom”. (object)
Yes, I understand those general rules. It gets complicated with long, compound sentences. At least, for me.
First, separate complete sentences/clauses. Then, within each clause, identify the subject and the object (if there is an object). Once you can identify subject and object, who/whom can be conquered.
There’s at least one more trick suggested in this article:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/who-versus-whom
My pet peeve- semicolons. They feel awkward.
It feels appropriate to link this:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/semicolons-a-love-story/?_r=0
Always knew I liked Kurt Vonnegut; I just never knew why. 
I personally am a fan of fluency in a second language and reading old written works. Once you do, you get a sense of what grammar rules are silly/stupid as well as an ear for poetic language.
When we started learning math, <=> we never said anything except greater, equal or less than. Never were we saying fewer. My H (who is significantly older) works hard to keep our nuclear family using fewer and less correctly, but we were NEVER taught the difference in school, neither me nor our kids.
While we are on the subject of less and fewer, I have a question. There has been an ad on the radio recently that talks about 3 times fewer incidents. I thought the correct terminology was 1/3 fewer or 1/3 less. Am I being overly fussy or even incorrect?
^ You’re not being overly fussy; they’re being idiotic. The way I see it, if there had been 30 incidents/week before, three times fewer (less) would be 30 minus 90, or negative sixty. I think they mean 1/3 less.
@lotsofquests,
It depends on what they’re trying to say.
Let’s say there are 90 annual deaths attributable to a disease. If Drug A reduces deaths by 6, it’s reducing deaths from the disease by 1/15, or resulting in 1/15th fewer deaths.
If drug B reduces deaths by 1/3 (30 deaths) it would result in 1/3 fewer deaths, but it would also result in 5 times fewer deaths than drug A.
So if you’re trying to look at the efficacy of a single drug you might use 1/3 fewer, whereas if you’re trying to compare drugs, you might use 3 times fewer.
Re #52-54
Wouldn’t “3 times fewer” be the same as “1/3 as many” and “2/3 fewer”? For example, going from 90 to 30.
Since when has " anyways " been acceptable to “anyway?” I hear teachers, newscasters, etc. say this. It has become a joke in my family.
@ucbalumnus - I’d describe a reduction from 90 to 30 as “1/3 as many” or “a 2/3 reduction” but to me “3 times fewer” is confusing at best but honestly I think the expression is meaningless in this context.
Here’s why: If I were to look for a number “3 times fewer” than another number my immediate reaction is to do the math, which is to apply a factor of 3 to the original number and then subtract the resulting number from the original number. To me, then, the operation is
90 - (90 x 3) = -180, which obviously isn’t 30.
@prezbucky: brilliant
@HRSMom: Wait…are you secretly my husband signing in to CC!!!