I have never heard anyone use words "fewer" and "more" when talking about the fact that a certain number of items is greater than a certain number of other items by a constant.
For example if the number of pens that I have is greater than the number of pencils by 5 what is the proper way to say it without using the word "number". Is it "I have 5 more pens than pencils." And "I have 5 fewer pencils than pens." Both of these sentences sound extremely weird and I doubt they are correct, so, what is the proper way of saying these 2 sentences?
Answer
Both sentences are grammatically correct.
"I have 5 more pens than pencils."
"I have 5 fewer pencils than pens."
For the record, they sound fine to me as well as a native English speaker who regularly has to compare numbers and quantities.
Oxford dictionaries includes "fewer than 50 people" in an example of word usage.
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