Do you know me?
Hey you're about to take the quiz about AQUA BLUE 10! How well do you know her? THE FOLLOWING WORDS ARE VERY BORING! One of the more common questions that arrive for the Q&A section asks how many words there are in the English language. Almost as common are requests for the average size of a person�s vocabulary. These sound like easy questions; I have to tell you that they�re indeed easy to ask. But they�re almost impossible to answer satisfactorily, because it all depends what you mean by word and by vocabulary (or even English). What we mean by word sounds obvious, but it�s not. Take a verb like climb. The rules of English allow you to generate the forms climbs, climbed, climbable, and climbing, the nouns climb and climber (and their plurals climbs and climbers), compounds such as climb-down and climbing frame, and phrasal verbs like climb on, climb over, and climb down. Now, here�s the question you�ve got to answer: are all these distinct words, or do you lump them all together under climb? That this is not a trivial question can be proved by looking at half a dozen current dictionaries. You won�t find two that agree on what to list. Almost every word in the language has this fuzzy penumbra of inflected forms, separate senses and compounds, some to a much greater extent than climb. To take a famous case, the entry for set in the Oxford English Dictionary runs to 60,000 words. The noun alone has 47 separate senses listed. Are all these distinct words?
I can't wait to hear feedback! Do you know her? Are you sure? Well you can see with your very eyes! Good luck! THE FOLLOWING WORDS ARE BORING! One of the more common questions that arrive for the Q&A section asks how many words there are in the English language. Almost as common are requests for the average size of a person�s vocabulary. These sound like easy questions; I have to tell you that they�re indeed easy to ask. But they�re almost impossible to answer satisfactorily, because it all depends what you mean by word and by vocabulary (or even English). What we mean by word sounds obvious, but it�s not. Take a verb like climb. The rules of English allow you to generate the forms climbs, climbed, climbable, and climbing, the nouns climb and climber (and their plurals climbs and climbers), compounds such as climb-down and climbing frame, and phrasal verbs like climb on, climb over, and climb down. Now, here�s the question you�ve got to answer: are all these distinct words, or do you lump them all together under climb? That this is not a trivial question can be proved by looking at half a dozen current dictionaries. You won�t find two that agree on what to list. Almost every word in the language has this fuzzy penumbra of inflected forms, separate senses and compounds, some to a much greater extent than climb. To take a famous case, the entry for set in the Oxford English Dictionary runs to 60,000 words. The noun alone has 47 separate senses listed. Are all these distinct words?
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