Million words?

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

I looked at the Wikipedia article referenced below, and at Grant Barrett's
article. Like Grant, it seems clear to me that Payack's linguistic
pronouncements are often ridiculously wrong. However, it is not clear to me how he can make
much of a profit from this kind of enterprise. While it is infuriating to
have someone given so much credence by the popular press, I'd reserve the words
"charlatan" and "quack" for con-game people who make money selling worthless
goods to innocent, gullible people, who are materially damaged thereby. Is this
guy really hurting anyone, or is he just someone who likes to get his name in
the papers? WE all know that the million-word thing is nonsense, but is a
concerted effort to "bring him down" maybe just a bit of overkill? I don't have a
strong opinion on this--just wondering (the libel laws being what they are,
etc.)

In a message dated 1/3/09 12:35:14 AM, nunberg at ISCHOOL.BERKELEY.EDU writes:


> There was another one of these just the other day in the National
> Post. I've had a Google News alert out on this guy for a while and
> have been making a point of writing to every journalist who cites him
> to tell them that the man is a charlatan -- I want to see as a point
> of interest whether it is in fact possible to bring a quack like this
> down. In my notes I include the following list of URL's.
>
> http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/grantbarrett/comments/a_quick_debunkin
> g_of_a_language_quack/
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002809.html
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002795.html
>
> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=816
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004189.html
>
> http://www.slate.com/id/2139611/
>
> http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/payack.html
>
> There's also Payack's Wikipedia entry to be dealt with at some point:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Language_Monitor
>
> Geoff Nunberg
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>




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