Fewer versus less is a debate in English grammar about the appropriate use of these two determiners. Linguistic prescriptivists usually say that fewer and not less should be used with count nouns, and that less should be used only with mass nouns. This distinction was first tentatively suggested by the grammarian Robert Baker in 1770, and it was eventually presented as a rule by many grammarians since then. However, modern linguistics has shown that idiomatic past and current usage consists of the word less with both count nouns and mass nouns so that the traditional rule for the use of the word fewer stands, but not the traditional rule for the use of the word less. As Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage explains, "Less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured and to number among things that are counted.”