2020-07-21

Words

I wonder to what extent articles about ‘X number of words that don’t have an equivalent in English’ just demonstrate the limited size of the vocabulary of those writing them?

It’s a red herring anyway as it’s the descriptive power of the language that’s important not the ultimate number of words and I doubt there is a hierarchy.

I imagine the people who write them also rate Shakespeare’s plays by the number of lines (see Monty Python ¹).

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1. Which I won’t link to as it’s an example of how what is acceptable language evolves.↩

Aside Hobby Horse

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