Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion

"A Way with Words" is a new radio program on NCPR (North Country Public Radio).
I just happened to tune into it today. Very interesting and fun to listen to.
See the following links: ====>
http://www.waywordradio.org/
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.or...

The program's website says:
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"A Way with Words" is a lively hour-long public radio show about the English language. Co-hosts Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett take calls from listeners about linguistic disputes, grammatical pet peeves, the origins of words and phrases, and curious regional expressions."

"William Safire calls the program "entertainingly erudite" in the New York Times."
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The current schedule shows the program airing on Mondays from 1PM to 2PM EST.

George Carlin was making fun of the English language in the last book of his I was listening to, Brain Droppings. It's an easy language to make fun of. Lots to discuss about it, too. Isn't it up to 750,000 words or so - like 3 times the size of most other languages?

Jim, I didn't realize that the English language has more words than other languages. I suppose that's because its words are derived from so many other languages.

Actually, 750,000 words doesn't sound like too many, when you think about it. That solves the mystery of a strange phenomenon for me. Often while I'm watching TV and typing at the same time, I'll hear the word I'm typing being said on the TV at exactly the same moment. I thought that was spooky until our son explained that the odds are good for that to happen, since there is a limited amount of words in the language and certain words are bound to come up at the same time quite often.

Thanks for the link to Carlin's "Brain Droppings". I see that the Goodreads description calls Carlin a "sarcastic semanticist". LOL He sure is... or was. Too bad he's passed on.

The actual number of words in our language is up for grabs. One place claims we'll hit the 1 million mark this year, others say half that or a bit more. Depends a lot on how they count.

There are a lot of problems in counting words:
- Is does one word? "He does the dishes." or "It was a herd of deer with 15 does & 1 buck."
- Do derivations count as separate words or not? 'Duck' & 'Ducks' are one word, but what about 'sing', 'sung' & 'sang'? Certainly 3 different entries in the dictionary or they're impossible to look up, but are they one or 3 words?
- When is a slang word part of the language & does it ever leave? It may fall out of common usage, but still be in a lot of written material.
- Are acronyms words? Some get into common usage as slang: "I need more RAM." is an understandable & oft used phrase meaning a person needs more memory, but is RAM a real word or not?
- Specialty words for specific jobs/disciplines & new items. These often cross language lines, too. They borrow our words, we borrow their's - who do they belong to? When are they considered a word in any language? How long do they have to last? (The word 'floptical' comes to mind.)

I've seen the average 'normal usage' words for an adult English speaker put as low as 5,000 words. Other places will say 10 times that (50,000) as 'active' words (commonly used) with as much as twice as many 'passive' words (understood, but not commonly used) for a vocabulary larger than some languages (150,000).

A decent dictionary easily has 50,000 words & a really good dictionary over 500,000 - for English. No other language comes close, from what I can tell. French is trying to legislate a 'pure' language of about 100,000 words, I think. German is 2 or 3 times as big.

It's funny how little we know or agree on about such a fundamental item as our vocabulary. No wonder we can't communicate.

Jim wrote: "The actual number of words in our language is up for grabs. One place claims we'll hit the 1 million mark this year, others say half that or a bit more. Depends a lot on how they count."

Interesting analysis, Jim.

One of the books on my To-Read Shelf is:
_The Stuff of Thought Language as a Window into Human Nature_ by Steven Pinker.

From the GR book description:
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"The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Pinker reveals how our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and how our nouns and verbs speak to our notions of matter."
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The book seems to combine two of my favorite subjects: Words and Psychology.

No analysis, Joy, just lots of questions.

Pinker's book really does look interesting. I've added it to my wish lists, but it looks as if it is very popular. Maybe some day I'll get it.

It is an interesting subject & the primary reason I oppose multiple official languages in this country. How can we function as a country if we have no common basis for communication - translations being extremely poor, even in closely related languages.

I've read several SF books that have dealt with the subject to some degree. It is fascinating.

Jim wrote: "No analysis, Joy, just lots of questions."

Jim, aren't questions a form of analysis? :)

Jim wrote: "...It is an interesting subject & the primary reason I oppose multiple official languages in this country. How can we function as a country if we have no common basis for communication"

Jim, I would oppose multiple official languages too.
I wonder what countries have them.

The U.S. doesn't have one & New York state, I think, is the leader with over two dozen 'official' languages. By that I mean they have forms in & are legally obliged to have a translator for all those languages. I think Nashville, TN is now undergoing some kind of court case to make it English only for legal purposes. I'm all for it. Except for my paternal grandfather (Scot/Irish/English) all my great grandparents had to learn English & were proud of it.

Jim wrote: "The U.S. doesn't have one & New York state, I think, is the leader with over two dozen 'official' languages. By that I mean they have forms in & are legally obliged to have a translator for all those languages..."

Jim, I didn't know that! Sheesh!

Yeah. Can you imagine? I have trouble with forms & legalese in English - imagine the mess it makes when they're translated 20 odd different ways? Lawyers split enough hairs on the 'letter' of the law & judges let them get away with it. What if the letter isn't even in the original language the law was written in?

Oh & I think of analysis as putting facts into a comprehensible order for better understanding. I know few 'facts' about the English language & less about American - which doesn't seem to differentiated, even though spellings vary between Great Britain English & American English. All I know is that a quick search turned up more questions than answers. The few 'facts' turned out to be soft - mushy as an old banana. More like guesses & most weren't all that well educated.

Jim wrote: "... Oh & I think of analysis as putting facts into a comprehensible order
for better understanding."

Jim, I see what you mean.
Questions, instead, are a form of TRYING to analyze. :)

"Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers." -Voltaire

"Intelligence is not always knowing the answer.
It is always asking the question." -Maya Angelou

P.S. About other countries, I've been told that Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland all have multiple official languages. Switzerland has four.

I've also been told that New Zealand has three: English, Maori and NZ Sign language.

I found all this out by consulting with my UK newsgroup. (g)

This might be a good time to insert a quote from Einstein? "Imagination is more important than knowledge." And he was one of our greatest scientists. And here's one just for fun by Dorothy Parker:

I like a martini
two at the very most
three, I'm under the table
four, I'm under my host.

That's 'nuff said for today...nina

LOL - Parker had a way with words alright!!!

She is credited with having said:
"If all the girls at Vassar were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised."

Perhaps she got the idea from George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) who said:
"If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion."

As for Einstein, he was full of insights, wasn't he.
Yes, he valued imagination, as your quote shows.
Along those same lines, he also said:
"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.”
-Albert Einstein

My MIL was a doer. She said she just couldn't sit around and do nothing. While on the other hand, I can sit and ruminate for days! As you can well imagine, we didn't have much in common. :)