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Number of Words in a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 9 of 9 05 September 2013 at 3:33pm | IP Logged |
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Interesting about ice cream. I would not consciously have thought of the lack of a
hyphen, but probably would have written it without one automatically. I looked it up in an oldish Concise OED, and it has ice-cream; also chimney-sweep and vacuum-cleaner, none of which have hyphens in any of the first hits when I google them (could that be US influence creeping in via the internet? I offer that as a suggestion without any evidence). I think the opposite sometimes happens and word pairs (or word-pairs) lose their hyphens and become a single word. But then I couldn't think of any. However, in the OED I found pincushion, pennypincher, and I am sure there are many others. I think that when new word pairings come in, they tend to have hyphens, as a kind of warning to the unwary, but then eventually the hyphen is dropped, one way or another. English being what it is, I doubt if there is any great logic at work. It's just a question of what we get used to and eventually accept. And if in doubt, we ask David Crystal. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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