A million English words, or only 600,000? Either way, it's a language packed with more words than you'll ever need

[Dennis Baron]

as long as we're being megapicky, can you say that the anglo-saxons
contributed to English if it was their language to begin with?
____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage




On Jul 9, 2008, at 12:53 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: A million English words, or only 600,000? Either
> way, it's a
>              language packed with more words than you'll ever need
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> That was my point to Randy, expressed in an attemptedly-humorous and
> anachronistic way with reference to the Anglo-Saxons, whose pungent
> contributions to English long predated both the 1590s and literacy.
>
> Joel
>
> At 7/9/2008 01:15 PM, Dennis Baron wrote:
>> If only literates could coin words, then how could language develop
>> before literacy? Oh wait, maybe it didn't.  Words are slippery things
>> to count; new words slipperier; words on their way out slipperiest?
>>
>> D
>> ____________________
>> Dennis Baron
>> Professor of English and Linguistics
>> Department of English
>> University of Illinois
>> 608 S. Wright St.
>> Urbana, IL 61801
>>
>> office: 217-244-0568
>> fax: 217-333-4321
>>
>> www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron
>>
>> read the Web of Language:
>> www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jul 9, 2008, at 9:45 AM, LanDi Liu wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: A million English words, or only 600,000? Either
>>> way, it's a
>>>             language packed with more words than you'll ever need
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 8:43 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>> And one could point out how much more linguistic the 1590s were by
>>>> dividing the times per word by the number of English speakers in
>>>> the
>>>> two periods.
>>>>
>>>> Joel
>>>
>>> Especially if one only counted literate speakers.  One might assume
>>> the unwashed masses weren't coining too many words.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Randy Alexander
>>> Jilin City, China
>>> My Manchu studies blog:
>>> http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>>>
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>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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