Forwarded from Wakingup1984
A blog post for The Economist agrees that English is rich in vocabulary, but comparisons with other languages can’t be made for several reasons.
The simplest problem in comparing the size of different languages is inflection.
Do we count “run”, “runs” and “ran” as three separate words? Another problem is multiple meanings. Do we count “run” the verb and “run” the noun as one word or two? What about “run” as in the long run of a play on Broadway? According to a recent NPR article, “run” has at least 645 different meanings!
ARTICLE
The simplest problem in comparing the size of different languages is inflection.
Do we count “run”, “runs” and “ran” as three separate words? Another problem is multiple meanings. Do we count “run” the verb and “run” the noun as one word or two? What about “run” as in the long run of a play on Broadway? According to a recent NPR article, “run” has at least 645 different meanings!
ARTICLE
Forwarded from 𝕀𝕟 𝕄𝕒𝕘𝕟𝕒 𝔼𝕩𝕔𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠