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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: List of early English words currently in use in some form
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References: <goolsby-2604951045210001@198.68.144.103> <3p3ts9$2oqq@usenetp1.news.prodigy.com> <d8krf3.h6a@midway.uchicago.edu> <3p6j81$1f3o@usenetp1.news.prodigy.com>
Date: Thu, 18 May 1995 21:24:38 GMT
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Dear Patient Readers:  If this post doesn't settle the issue, I'll 
take my half of the disagreement to private email.

In article <3p6j81$1f3o@usenetp1.news.prodigy.com>,
Kyle Gryphon <UJZA56B@prodigy.com> wrote:
>I investigated what I read about the vocab being mostly French, and may 
>have proved the expert wrong myself.  I believe I posted my findings.

You did not post these (redundant) findings and I doubt you've 
"proved" anything except that I should've paid more attention to 
your address before I responded to your previous posts.

> In any case,
>what you said about 1000 words has no bearing on what I wrote about 100.

But is does have bearing on what you said about total English vocab;
furthermore, what I said about the 100 most frequent words does come
to bear on your comments.
>
>2% old english is what I read, and I will stand by it;
>It seems perfectly acceptable to me, depending on how many words are 
>accounted for.

Read where?  And of course you can reduce the Anglo-Saxon percentage
to 2%.  All one has to do is include large amounts of scientific 
jargon (such as names for chemicals) in the total.  However, I could
just as well include the name of every number in English and push the
Anglo-Saxon percentage up to around 50%.

This is why specialised jargon is usually not considered when making
generalisations about English vocabulary.

> I never claimed that my 300,00 figure was set in stone.

No, but until now, you never mentioned you were abandoning it.  Okay,
so now what's your claim?  That the *total* English vocabulary is
only 2% Anglo-Saxon?  If that's the case, please define what jargon
you are and aren't counting in the total.  Are you claiming the
percentage remains constant for values > n (where n = 299,999)?

Please pick a claim and stick to it; flip-flopping only weakens your
position.

>Anyone who has read beowulf will understand my meaning.

I have (though I must admit that I haven't read the entire work in the
original) and I don't understand what you're trying to say.
>
>Your expert credentials are meaningless; your patronizing attitude is 
>enough

Like you, I've yet to produce any "expert credentials"; unlike you, I've 
been relying on the credentials of reputable published sources.  Feel 
free at any time to cite any evidence you can find for your claims.

>to make disagreeing with you fun, -certainly with no obvious distortion
>of the truth on my part.

Are you including the word "truth" twice in your count of English vocable?  
Certainly your use of the word is different enough from the definition
given in the OED to constitute a new sememe.




-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
