"Unring" Not in OED

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Tue, Nov 27, 2007 at 01:41:39PM -0500, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>
> I am intrigued by the idea that 69,000 Google hits is not
> really a lot.  I imagine that the OED may have a rule of
> thumb for seriously considering a word for inclusion, and
> that the threshhold may be a lot lower than 69,000.  Jesse,
> does the OED have any kind of formal or informal numerical
> guideline for Google hits?

We have various guidelines in place, all of which work in
tandem with other guidelines. That is, we look at a lot of
different things, not just the number of Google hits.

I can't talk about actual numbers, but I can say that 69,000
is well above the number needed to tip a usage from less to
more interesting in our considerations.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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