People using 'less' when they should be using 'fewer'
EDIT: you guys have dug up some truly horrible pisstakes :D Thank you for those.
To the serious folk - relax a little. This is Mildly Infuriating, not I'm dying if this doesn't stop. As a non-native speaker I was taught a certain way to use the language. The rules were not written down by me, nor the teachers - it was done by the native folk. Peace!
I'm also a non-native speaker and I've also been taught to speak a certain way ("you and I are going" but "he saw you and me"; don't split infinitives; don't end sentences with prepositions, etc.), but then I read Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct and - even more relevant here - The Sense of Style. We've been taught to use language a certain way, but our teachers were following the prescriptivist school of thought. You say these rules were written by native folk, but it's often (if not usually) the native folk that say less when they "should" be saying fewer.
I know you said it's only mildly infuriating to you, but if proper use of language is something dear to your heart (as it is to mine) - I really recommend the above books as I think this is something not worth to get even mildly infuriated about. The border between less and fewer is fuzzier than you think and - in the words of Pinker - once you really master the distinction - that's one fewer thing for you to worry about.
I've corrected people a few times on this, but then I looked it up, and from what I understand, since language is defined by usage, saying "less" when technically it should be "fewer" is still generally correct. It still sounds alright to me, though oddly the reverse (using "fewer" when it should be "less") sounds fewer (aka less) correct to me.
Ok so, as a native English speaker, let me inform you, that whatever you think is a rule in English, isn't. It's a guideline. It's a hard language because we lack structure. The native teachers are teaching you the basic guidelines, not actual conversational English, which varies heavily on location, and social group.
It’s fine, OP - English is my native language and it irks me some, too, because It was a subject in school that I did really well in and tutored other students.
I’ve come to accept the fact that most folks will always say ‘less’ regardless of the context, I’m guilty of it at times, and at the end of the day it’s not a big deal. But I’m sorry you’re getting the reaction that you are.
My husband and I were actually discussing this a few days ago when I corrected him, again, but at this point it’s more of a running joke between us and he laughs (he is the only person who I ‘correct’ because it is a joke and he finds it funny; I’m not being an asshole when I do it and he knows that).
Honestly you have to be able to switch caring about that stuff off, when you want to, otherwise knowing any of these rules is more a curse than a blessing.