"croissant" as a zero plural

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

david denison writes to inquire about bill poser's use of "croissant"
in his latest Language Log posting:

At the grocery store today I bought some croissant. They have two
kinds: regular and "multigrain". The funny thing is, they don't label
the bin with the regular croissant "regular croissant" or just
"croissant": they label them "fresh croissant". The implicature is
that multigrain croissant are not fresh. If I were the storekeeper, I
don't think I'd want to suggest that.
(http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003564.html)

"they label them..." and "... multigrain croissant are not fresh"
make it clear that bill is using "croissant" as a zero plural (rather
than a mass noun, a hypothesis that would have been consistent with
the earlier "some croissant" and "the regular croissant").  whether
zero plural or mass noun, these uses struck denison's british ears as
odd; for him "croissant" is just a regular count noun, with the
plural "croissants".  for me too.  and the OED's citations have it as
a regular count noun; most of the cites are for "croissants", in fact.

but there are a fair number of zero-plural webhits, like:

1. Croissant are an * institution " , and while I ' m at it " savoury
croissant " don ' t exist , worse than ... Croissant are a breakfast
food and are sweet . ...
www.thesinner.net/messageboard-viewthread.php?thread=22097&page=1

2. you have to watch out when the almond croissant are heavily coated
with confectioner's sugar-- a sure Red Flag. ...
www.yelp.com/biz/ri7UUYmx21AgSpRsf4-9QA?
rpp=20&sort_by=relevance_desc&start=20

3. The only minor criticism I can make is that the croissant are
often baked a tad too long, till quite dark: still they're flakey and
buttery as they should ...
ilforno.typepad.com/il_forno/2004/02/bakeries_local_.html

anybody know anything about this usage?  in particular, about its
distribution?  i'm interested in the distribution because this might
be a variant that has spread in a more-or-less random way from person
to person (an "ice plant" variable, in the terminology i'm currently
using -- after the choice between "ice plant" as a count noun and
"ice plant" as a mass noun, which seems to be determined in this
person-to-person fashion; which way you go probably depends on which
version you heard, or at least noticed, first).

arnold, who's still getting used to "the Sierra" as a zero plural
(though this is by far the prevalent usage in these parts), as in:

The Sierra are also a tourist and recreational destination: hiking,
camping, skiing, boating and fishing are all popular pastimes in the
valleys, rivers, ...
forestethics.org/article.php?list=type&type=35

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