Fewer salary/slaries

[Arnold Zwicky]

On May 22, 2009, at 7:22 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> 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
>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> 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.

i'm sorry.  i forgot that the original example had someone saying that
her salary was "five times less" than someone else's.  yes, "salary"
is a mass noun, and "less" is entirely correct (and "fewer" is not).
other examples have plural count nouns, so sticklers would insist on
"fewer" there (though some people would use "less" here too).

arnold

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