Caption on a nature site: "Ruby-_Throat_ Hummingbird"

Arnold Zwicky zwicky at STANFORD.EDU
Sun Jul 8 14:18:44 UTC 2012


On Jul 8, 2012, at 7:05 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> On Jul 8, 2012, at 9:03 AM, Charles C Doyle wrote:
>
>> Like "white-tailed deer" (2,770,000 raw Google hits) vs. "white-tail deer" (780,000 hits).  The OED acknowledges both forms.
>>
>
> Or "one-armed man" (1,820,000) vs. "one-arm man" (555,000), even closer.

ratio of 3.3, much like the deer case.

>  And when I tried combining it with "the Fugitive", I got a surprisingly close competition:
>
> "one-armed man" + "the Fugitive":  34,700
> "one-arm man" + "the Fugitive":  21,700

ratio now down to 1.6, possibiy by some sort of familiarity effect.

arnold

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