[Lexicog] frequency counts as a lexicographic measure

[Christopher Brewster]

This raises an interesting issue.
I feel 873 occurrences in Google is not very great.

Two points:
1. How frequent does a term have to be to merit lexicographic attention?
Does this make sense in the ever expanding Internet universe?
2. Given the extensive discussion on the corpora list about the
unreliability of Google counts, how do we interpret 873 occurrences in
Google?

Thoughts?

Christopher Brewster


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-----Original Message-----
From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Roberts
Sent: 05 June 2005 16:26
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] opposite of orphan

Wayne,

... curious that "half-orphan" doesn't appear as either a main entry or a
sub-entry in my NODE or CHAMBERS English dictionaries. Are there any English
dictionaries which has "half-orphan" as such? Is it a US coinage? It
generated 873 hits with Google, so it appears to be a widely used term. But
it is not half odd that it is not listed in major English dictionaries.

John R.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Wayne Leman" <wayne_leman at sil.org>
To: <lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 2:23 PM
Subject: [Lexicog] opposite of orphan


> And, FWIW, John, a child who has lost one parent through death is a half
> orphan.
> Wayne
> -----
> Wayne Leman
> http://head.to/revision
>
>> In most of the English dictionaries I have looked at *orphan* means 'a
>> child
>> who has lost both (biological) parents through death'.
>
> <snip>
>> John Roberts
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>





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