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>>One of my grammar pet peeves is "less" instead of "fewer." The express lanes at all the grocery stores I shop at around here have "nn items or less" signs over all the express lanes. I am getting a lot better at letting trivial things go but a little voice in my head still wants to shout, "10 items or FEWER!"
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>"Less" has had quite a surge.
>We programmers say "A is less than or equal to B" and by now it would sound weird to say it any other way, but I wonder if that's precise.

That's a good point. I've been programming for most of my adult life so "less" has bled over to areas where perhaps it shouldn't.

Thinking about it, to me "fewer" is tied to integers. If I'm aiming to be correct in speech I might say "1 is fewer than 2" but to say "1 is fewer than 1.25" seems very awkward even if theoretically correct.