I am not sure I get it mate.
Are you saying that in the examples I provided, it must have been less. And not lesser?
Like, less money, less hate, less salt and less ambiguity?
Yes that's correct.
Less is used to indicate quantity for mass nouns, like the examples you give. Its counterpart is 'fewer', which is used with countable nouns. A good way of remembering which is which is 'fewer apples, less apple juice' or 'fewer milk bottles, less milk'
And only if I'm comparing them, then lesser money, lesser hate, lesser salt and lesser ambiguity.
No lesser is not used for quantities, it's used for
qualities - size, strength, value, importance, potency etc. So you wouldn't say 'lesser money' when you mean there's a smaller
amount of money. It's difficult to think of an example where lesser would be used with money. Or any of your examples...
Ok, it's a bit tortuous but with hate, for example, you could say 'I hate both Everton and Man Utd but Utd is the greater hate while Everton is the lesser hate' if are talking about the
quality of the hate, not the amount in units.
Think of the phrase 'the lesser of two evils'. You're not talking about a countable amount of evil, you're saying that of the two evils this one is not so evil as the other.
Basically if you can say something is greater, the opposite of it is lesser
But are the examples for fewer right?!? Thats what I understood when I learnt it. Fewer to describe what can be counted. And less to describe what cannot be counted. You can count dollars. But you cant count money. You can count calories but you cant count salt.
Yes that's correct, fewer and less are counterparts of each other, depending on whether you're talking about a mass noun or a countable noun