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To: SunkenCiv

The language is “growing much faster now” because before the advent of Webster’s Third International Dictionary, the big dictionaries were prescriptive. A word had to stay around a while before it became a dictionary word. Now if two people can be attested to have used a word more than once it is enshrined in the dictionary.It is part of the Deconstructionist mindset that says language is essentially meaningless anyway and expresses only power relationships between groups.


11 posted on 12/30/2010 7:20:18 AM PST by ThanhPhero (Khach hanh huong den La Vang)
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To: ThanhPhero
If that is the criteria, and if James Joyce's impenetrable novel "Finnegan's Wake" was included in the survey (granted, it's what--80 years old?) it alone could account for a significant portion of the increase.

I think I'll write a simple computer program that cuts and dices existing English words, reassembles them in new forms, and arranges them along a basic scaffolding of grammar. I'll name it "Moor Finnegan's Nuncents." That'll bump the numbers up.

14 posted on 12/30/2010 7:38:08 AM PST by behzinlea
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