we mourn our loss

[George Thompson]

The conclusion to an elegy for a tree that has been cut down in my village:
"a street famous for its elms is now poorer by one more"

Prescriptivists who insist on enforcing a distinction between "less" and
"fewer" have long been butts for scorn.  What if they start calling for a
distinction between "less" and "more"?  Though indeed no adverb is needed:
"poorer by one" is a complete thought.  That' how I'd dodge the controversy.

GAT

--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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