Good grammar vs. good taste revisited?

[Dan Goncharoff]

Here is a complaining e-mail that the ads contrasted 'great taste' and
not  'more taste' with 'less filling'.

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 23, 2011, at 9:31 PM, Spanbock/Svoboda-Spanbock
<spanbocks at VERIZON.NET> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Spanbock/Svoboda-Spanbock <spanbocks at VERIZON.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Good grammar vs. good taste revisited?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm liking googla = plural of google? (I'm always the last to hear.)
>
> On Sep 23, 2011, at 4:43 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Good grammar vs. good taste revisited?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> A currently airing commercial for Mercedes introducing its new line
>> of cars, the [two-door] 2012 C Coupe, boasts that it has:
>>
>> More Power
>> More Style
>> More Technology
>> Less Doors
>>
>> Let's see if it's a print ad too
>>
>>
>> Not that I can see, but lots of (predictable) complaining googla to
>> the effect that it "should" be "fewer doors".  I assume the "Less
>> doors" was entirely intentional and harks back to Miller Lite's
>> "Less filling"/"More taste" commercials as well as the general
>> tendency for "less" to be the antonym of "more" in most contexts.
>> And that we were supposed to notice.  It's not like a supermarket's
>> "10 items or less" aisle, which is likely unintentional.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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