[Lexicog] idioms

[Wayne Leman]

12,000 idioms may be just a drop in the bucket for English idioms.

:-)

Wayne Leman


  Scott N. wrote:

  "Bye the way, don't think that a collection of ten or twelve thousand idioms is nearly enough to call it comprehensive. It doesn't 
  work that way."



  Scott, are you saying that there are more than 12,000 idioms in English? Do you have an estimate of how many there are, or does it not work that way? I suspect that 'idioms' grade off into 'common collocates', but I'm not an expert on this subject. I've written a few little things on the subject, but feel like I'm in the dark. Can you enlighten us or direct us to some good books/articles on the subject?

  Ron Moe






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  From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com [mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of bolstar1
  Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2008 9:19 AM
  To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
  Subject: [Lexicog] On Me One More Time



  Ken: You're welcome. I actually still us a DOS-based program called Q&A 
  (eleqant and simple to program. I then convert selective records to 
  windows format when I write for public usage. It came from many years 
  of writing on note papers that I carried around in my shirt pocket; in 
  addition, screening about twenty idiom dictionaries, cliche 
  dictionaries, proverb collections, allusion collections, verbal phrase 
  collections (particularly Richard Spears); plus screening regular 
  dictionaries (page by page -- Random House, Oxford, Merriam, etc.) 
  copying down phrases, both idiomatic and semi-idiomatic, longhand. I've 
  often felt like a secretary on steroids. I've done Shakespeare, too -- 
  but that's a little different from modern-day linguistic analysis. 
  Googling, or doing anything by programming and collecting off of 
  the internet net for these things is, up to now and today's state-of-
  the-art, totally useless. I won't go into reasons here, but, I've 
  tried, and it doesn't work for me, either. There are few shortcuts, 
  other than pure plagiarism, to make comprehensive collections of 
  phrases or idioms. 
  Bye the way, don't think that a collection of ten or twelve 
  thousand idioms is nearly enough to call it comprehensive. It doesn't 
  work that way. Popular paperbacks may have 7,000 or 8,000, and leave 
  out tons of them -- if for nothing else, because proverbs, aphorisms, 
  dictums, maxims, allusions, etc. have humungous overlapping 
  paparameters.
  Good luck in your work....

  Scott N. 


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