number; statistic

[Marc Velasco]

if the OED has no entry for embaterion and also lacks the
statistic=inconsequential usage, then is this really the best yardstick to
gauge the veracity of claims that the English language has millions of
billions of kajillions of unique words??



On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 9:26 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      number; statistic
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I must be blind. Seems like there's no OED entry for "statistic," as in
> "Do=
> n't become a statistic."
> =A0
> And no def. under "number" that includes the related sense, "a person
> thoug=
> ht of merely as an inconsequential part of a great throng, with no regard
> t=
> o individuality or interest":
> =A0
> 1918 Robert Emmet Ryan, in Herbert Adams Gibbons _Songs from the Trenches:
> =
> The Soul of the A.E.F._ (N.Y.: Harper & Bros.) 48: You wonder if they'll
> fi=
> nd you, should you, perhaps, be slain,/ For you know you're but a number
> in=
>  that deadly leaden rain./ ...Then as numbers they are buried, with their
> t=
> omb the open sky,/ With a comrade for a tombstone, that's the way the
> numbe=
> rs die.
> =A0
> JL=0A=0A=0A
>
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