I have less company holidays than is necessary

[keannu]

Is only 2 correct? Doesn't 1 work, too? Does "less" work only with uncountable nouns?

1.I have less company holidays than is necessary
2.I have fewer company holidays than is necessary

 

[bhaisahab]

2. would be correct if it ended with a full stop. 1. would not.

 

[emsr2d2]

What is a company holiday? Is it a holiday you go on with your colleagues? Is it the number of days holiday/leave you are allocated by the company you work for?

 

[bhaisahab]

I agree that it's not a natural sentence. It would be a grammatically correct sentence if it ended in a full stop, though.

 

[keannu]

I meant the holiday allocated by the company you work for. How do you say that?
Also, as in "I have less than 20 dollars", can't "less than" be used for countable nouns as well?

 

[emsr2d2]

Countable nouns use "fewer than".
Non-countable nouns use "less than".

I have fewer apples than you.
He takes fewer holidays than his mother.
We have less water than you.
They eat less sugar these days than they did last year.

For your original sentence, say "I have fewer days' annual leave/holiday than I need" or "I don't have as many annual leave/holiday days as I need".

Note that they can both use the non-countable "leave/holiday" if you omit "days".
"I have less leave/holiday than I need" or "I don't have as much leave/holiday as I need".

 

[GoesStation]

Also, as in "I have less than 20 dollars", can't "less than" be used for countable nouns as well?[/COLOR]

Although you might say Here's a dollar while handing someone a dollar bill, you can only describe seven dollar bills as seven dollars if you're talking about the amount of money they comprise.

 

[jutfrank]

keannu -- my advice to you would be DON'T use less with uncountable nouns even though lots of native speakers do. If you start doing it now, it will be hard to break the habit later.

 

[Roman55]

Don't you mean the exact opposite of that? You DO use less with uncountable nouns.

 

[jutfrank]

keannu -- my advice would be DON'T listen to me, DO listen to Roman55!

What I should have said is: Don't use less with plural nouns, use fewer.