unrUng, etc. and googling

[Barnhart]

Dear Larry and others on the list,

I am skeptical, too.  I offered the numbers from Nexis not for arguing the
entry-worthiness in OED or any other dictionary necessarily.  The Nexis
numbers were offered simply to put the "outrageously" large numbers of
Googling in a more manageable perspective.

Regards,
David

barnhart at highlands.com

American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> writes:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: unrUng, etc. and googling
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 5:06 AM -0500 11/28/07, Barnhart wrote:
>>I find the Google stuff interesting but almost irrelevant.  The numbers
>>get so large some times my head spins and it takes a while to unspin.
>>
>>In a more manageable resource, Nexis, I find:
>>
>>unring ....... 169 articles
>>unringing...   20 articles
>>unrung......   46 articles
>>unringable ..   7 articles
>>unrang ......    0 articles
>>unringer ....    0 articles
>>
>
>While I'm on record as supporting the inclusion of "unring", I think
>it's only fair to note on behalf of Ron and other skeptics that the
>adjectival formations in themselves are inconclusive, since they
>might (depending on what the context shows) sustain an analysis along
>the lines of un[[ring [able] or un[[ring[ing] rather than
>[un[ring]]able, [un[ring]]ing, in which case no verb "unring" would
>be involved.  Same for "unrung":  an unrung bell might be one that
>hasn't rung (or been rung), rather than one that someone tried to
>unring.
>
>LH
>
>>For just a little more realistic perspective, all of them came up in the
>>spell-checker along with unspin..
>>
>>Regards,
>>David
>>
>>barnhart at highlands.com
>>
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>
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>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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