Misoverestimated?
The Independent reports that English is approaching the million-word milestone. Now, the largest edition of Duden (the authoritive German language dictionary) contains about 200 000 words, and in French there are between 25 000 and 100 000 words, depending on who you listen to. The million word total comes from an American consultancy called Global Language Monitor.
So what are all these words in English? Well, according to the Independent:
Up to 20 per cent of the words used by Global Language Monitor come from hybrids such as Chinglish and Japlish. Words from Chinglish include the business terms “drinktea“, meaning closed, and “torunbusiness“, meaning open. Bushisms such as “uninalienable” and ‘misunderestimate’ are included.
And presumably, non-Bushisms such as “Bushism“? Oh – and by the way, in case you think I made up the word in the title of this posting, Google returns over 500 hits for it.