...and including?

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:14 AM -0700 9/20/08, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>On Sep 20, 2008, at 4:50 AM, David Daniel wrote:
>
>>>From London Telegraph
>>
>>Britain's Tesco supermarket chain is changing the "Ten items or
>>less" signs
>>at express checkout lanes because that's bad grammar. For years,
>>Tesco has
>>resisted suggestions to change it to "Ten items or fewer", but has now
>>accepted a suggestion from the Plain English Campaign to use the
>>wording,
>>"Up to ten items". That wording, a Campaign spokesman said, "avoids
>>any
>>debate."
>
>on the Tesco affair, including the question of what "up to 10 items"
>means:
>
>AZ, 8/31/08: More on less:
>  http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=552
>
>AZ, 9/4/08: Still more on less:
>  http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=557
>
Interesting point about the inclusive vs. exclusive readings of "up
to 10 items".  I wonder if I could try getting with claiming I
thought it meant "up to [at least] 10"...


LH

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