But that's not how most people talk, is it? Maybe in your circles, but not in mine. Is that a useful grammatical point to insist on? Why? "Less" is shorter and easier to say, everyone knows what it means. I guess that why it's universally used nowadays.

ps Often, maybe most of the time that I see "its" on here it's spelt wrongly, and it seems very soon that - e.g. "The dog wagged it's tail" - will be correct. I even frequently see plurals made with apostrophes, even on HN, and fear that may be an acceptable plural form one day.. But language isn't a fixed thing, as some people seem to think. However everyone speaks/writes, is correct. Where else did - or could - the first grammar books come from but writing down rules abstracted from how people actually spoke/wrote?