I'm having an argument about whether it's correct to say "fewer than 1 in 10 people" or "less than 1 in 10 people". Intuitively, I feel that it's definitely 'fewer' so now I'm trying to defend that.
If the subject of the sentence is the people, then it's a no-brainer: people are discrete values (it's not possible to have a fraction of a person -- well, not legally, anyway) so it's definitely 'fewer'.
I'm content to accept that the subject of the sentence is the fraction (a percentage) though. But even still, because the fraction describes a percentage of a discrete quantity, I still think it is itself a discrete value.
"Fewer than 1 in 10 people" describes the range of values from the empty set up to (but not including) the set containing 1 in 10 people. Since a person is a discrete quantity, and cannot be subdivided, the range is a set of discrete sets:
- The empty set
- The set containing 1 person
- The set containing 2 people
- ...
- The set containing (1 in 10) - 1 people
Ergo the fraction still describes discrete values, and so 'fewer' is correct.