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Number of Words in a Language

  Tags: Number of words
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room Post Reply
9 messages over 2 pages: 1
montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4588 days ago

2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 9 of 9
05 September 2013 at 3:33pm | IP Logged 
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. :)



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