[Fwd: On counting words]

[Mike Salovesh]

I've received an inquiry, unless it's an enquiry, that  sounds like a job for
Super . . .  ADS.  (I'm sorta groggy with  sleep deprivation over the income
tax -- and I'm not finished yet.  Well, that's why they have an exemption  form,
which I emailed last night.  I think they owe me a refund, so I'm not worried
too much about penalties for late filing.)

I forward the message and my answer with my correspondent's permission:

-------- Original Message --------
From: Mike Salovesh <t20mxs1 at corn.cso.niu.edu>
Subject: On counting words
To: Kevin Smith <ksmith at ormond.unimelb.edu.au>

Kevin Smith wrote:
>
> Dear Mike Salovesh,
> I found what you wrote on the following website very helpful in my search
> to know the vocabulary of the average native Enlish speaker.
>
> http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/anthropology/anthro-l/archive/august-1996/0436.html
>
> I found this after hours of searching with google for a good information
> source on tests and estimates of the vocabulary of the average native
> Enlgish speaker. Could you direct me to an online (or offline) source
> where I can find more information in regards to this subject.
>
> Cheers,
> Kevin J Smith
> ksmith at ormond.unimelb.edu.au

Offhand, I can think of no better place to ask than The American Dialect
Society. Visit their website at http://www.americandialect.org/adsl.shtml for
more information on their email discussion list.  I highly recommend subscribing
to ADS-L;  full instructions are given at the URL I  cited.

(Paragraphs citing the delights of ADS-L erased here because I don't want  to
deal with swelled heads.  I was enthusiastic and laudatory, anyhow.)

With your permission, I'd like to forward your message to ADS-L.  Your  question
certainly fits their interests.

Thank you for reminding me of my long-ago message to ANTHRO-L.  I must have been
having a  very good day when I wrote it: here it is nearly five years later, and
there's no part of the message that makes me cringe today. I'll grant that it
could have been shorter, and the long digression about a dynamite punch I made
during a 1957 institute of the Linguistic Society of America is a story I tell
too often. But all in all, I'm glad the message is available in Danny Yee's
well-tended archives: I didn't know I knew all that stuff!

It's very early  Tuesday morning here; it's fun to send a note to someone who
already is in tomorrow but can still talk to me in his yesterday.

G'day!

-- mike salovesh   <salovesh at niu.edu>   PEACE !!!

        IN MEMORIAM:     Peggy Salovesh
        25 January 1932 -- 3 March 2001