English nearing 1,000,000 words?

[Barbara Need]

On the front page of today's Chicago Tribune is an article about Paul
Payack's (Global Language Monitor) "calculation" that English will
soon have 1,000,000 words. Here is the link to the on-line version:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-
million_words_swansonfeb20,1,1211245.story. The author contacted
Allan Metcalf and Jesse Sheidlower (hyphenated in the paper version
between the i and the d!). My first response was, but what
constitutes a word!

Barbara

Barbara Need
UChicago

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