[Lexicog] News time

[Fritz Goerling]

I wonder whether Ron Moe, member of this list, is willing to share with this
list

what he has written on "time." I think, Ron, what you have written is
profound

and eye-opening and of interest for lexicographers, lovers of words and
semanticists.

 

Fritz Goerling

--- In lexicographylist@ <mailto:lexicographylist%40yahoogroups.com>
yahoogroups.com, "John Roberts"
<dr_john_roberts at ...> wrote:
>
> It is not often that lexicographers feature on the BBC news website but 
> there is a posting there today where they do. The OUP have
researched what 
> are the most common nouns in the English language. The most common is 
> "time". This is partly because of the scores of expressions in English 
> featuring time. But it is mainly because English speakers like to
talk about 
> time a lot.
> 
> TOP 10 NOUNS
> 1 Time
> 2 Person
> 3 Year
> 4 Way
> 5 Day
> 6 Thing
> 7 Man
> 8 World
> 9 Life
> 10 Hand
> 
> But I found the most interesting comment was this:
> 
> "The thing that struck me when I put together this list was that 90%
of the 
> top 100 words were one syllable, and that a large proportion were
actually 
> from Old English, meaning the 

basic words we use all the time in basic 
> sentences are from before the Norman Conquest," he said. "We always
put the 
> focus on new words, changing language and words from other
countries, but in 
> reality the basic language we use has been the same for hundreds and 
> hundreds of years."
> 
> This means that at a fundamental level the English language hasn't
changed 
> much for over 2000 years.
> 
> John Roberts
>

It seems interesting to me that _time_ is also the first noun in The
American Heritage Word Frequency Book (1971) and in The Brown Count
(1967). 

Regards,
David K. Barnhart

Lexik at highlands. <mailto:Lexik%40highlands.com> com

 

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