How many words there are in the English language?
The short answer is that nobody knows for sure.
A standard concise desk dictionary will have around 50,000 headwords – the big ones much more.
Webster’s Third New International has around 450,000 headwords and the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 615,000—and the third edition (available online) is expanding all the time.
But these two lists don’t entirely overlap – in fact they have less than two thirds of their headwords in common.
That means that together, their combined list would exceed three-quarters of a million.
And they are not exhaustive.
One American philologist once claimed that according to his estimate there are at least five million words in the English language!
Seems a bit high to me, but, hey—who knows?
The real answer is that one knows for sure.
One reason is that there can be some dispute about what counts as an English word.
For instance, those scientific words that are used in every language are certainly used in English. If you read a scientific paper in English, it might contain the correct Latin name for a plant, or the scientifically accurate name for a chemical element—does that make those names part of the English language or not?
And what about regional dialects?
If they are dialects of English, are all their words to be counted as part of the English language?
And what about the jargon language of a trade or profession?
All this makes the report from the Global Language Monitor, in Austin, Texas, at bit strange.
This is a linguistic consultancy, and they have claimed there are exactly 999,060 words in the language at the moment—and the one million mark should tick up soon.
But that’s an oddly precise figure.
How did they come up with that?
I go back to where I started—we don’t really know how many words there are in our language—but it’s a lot!
Tonight I will join John Stanley on 2GB, 4BC, 2CC and the Tapt Radio Network for 'The Word Clinic -- right after the 10pm news. I will be in the 2GB studio and John will be at the Mission Australia Sleepout, so it will be an interesting program!
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BOOKS:
* My latest book is called Pray Like This. To look at prayer I do what I do in these Ozword columns: I go through the most famous prayer in the world (The Lord’s Prayer, also known as the Our Father) and unpack it word by word—each chapter being a short word-study on a key word in that prayer. There is a total of 21 words studies in all. To find out more, here’s a link to the publisher’s website (where you can buy a copy if you wish): Pray Like This – matthiasmedia.com.au
* My book is Sherlock Holmes: 5-Minute Mysteries -- containing 50 new stories I have written about the great detective. You can find it on Amazon. Just go to Amazon and type in Sherlock Holmes: 5-Minute Mysteries in the search panel. Or use this link: h Amazon.com.au : Sherlock Holmes 5-Minute Mysteries Kel Richards
* My book "Defending the Gospel" is now in a second, fully revised, edition. You can find it here: Defending the Gospel – matthiasmedia.com.au
* If you're looking for my recent book "Flash Jim" you'll find it here -- Flash Jim, The astonis
hing story of the convict fraudster who wrote Australia's first dictionary by Kel Richards | 9781460759769 | Booktopia
* You can find all Kel's books currently in print here -- Booktopia Search Results for 'kel richards'. We sell books, hardback, paperback, audio, CDs.
* And also here -- Amazon.com.au : Kel Richards
* And you'll find more here -- Search: 4 results found for "Kel Richards" – matthiasmedia.com.au
* Many of Kel's out of print books can be found at ABE Books -- Kel Richards - AbeBooks explaining words explain the term
BY THE WAY...
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
The liveliest part of this website is usually the Q and A page -- be sure to check it out from time to time.
