Some people say that equal is an absolute term,
that is, that two quantities either are or are not equal and that
equal therefore cannot be qualified in degree. Accordingly, it is
illogical to speak of making a more equal allocation of resources
among the departments. But in an earlier survey 71 percent of the
Usage Panel accepted this example. Was the panel being illogical?
People who object to the more equal usage
assume that mathematics and logic provide a model of accuracy that is
appropriate to the everyday use of language. This supposition also
underlies traditional grammatical discussions of other words, such as
unique, parallel, and center. According to this account