% of English words from Latin and Greek

[Mark Mandel]

Of course any reasonable evaluation would have to reflect word frequency.
The media, of course, would ignore that part, since the numbers wouldn't be
shocking.

m a m

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Eric Nielsen <ericbarnak at gmail.com> wrote:

> It seems to me that if we count all of the Latin and Greek derived words
> used in the various sciences--including social sciences, the percentage of
> Latin/Greek words in the total English vocabulary would be very high. There
> are many words that hardly see the light of day outside of their respective
> disciplines.
>
> I'm looking at a Systematic Botany reference book this moment, and I quite
> randomly find: *syngenesious*--with stamens united by their anthers. Words
> like this-and there are many- would push the percentage numbers up for
> Latin
> and Greek derived words.
>
> If the percentage count is of commonly-used words in English, I trust the
> number would much lower.
>
> Eric
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org