Fewer salary/slaries

[Arnold Zwicky]

On May 22, 2009, at 5:05 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Fewer salary/slaries
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 5/22/2009 05:29 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>> On May 22, 2009, at 1:26 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>> Subject:      Re: Five times less
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> ... I also have great difficulty with "two times
>>> less"; I have to say "one-half as much"
>>>
>>> At least they don't say "two times fewer"!
>>
>> ?? if you're counting objects, then sticklers on "less"/"fewer" would
>> insist on "fewer".
>
> Isn't "salary" a mass noun?  I don't count salary/salaries, I
> accumulate it.  :-)   Am I supposed to say "I have (earn) fewer
> salaries than he?"

no, no, the point is that  some of the relevant  hits have "fewer
than" and some have "less than", and both are possible,

arnold

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