Fewer salary/slaries

[Joel S. Berson]

At 5/22/2009 08:38 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>On May 22, 2009, at 5:05 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>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,

No, no, my point is that in comparing *salaries* (dollar amounts)
"less than" is correct.  I don't quarrel with "fewer than" for
countable things.

Joel

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