Timeline for Does "overseee" mean "one who is being overseen by the overseer"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
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| Oct 21, 2015 at 0:57 | comment | added | Grammar Addict | @RegDwigнt I actually studied this matter (English vs. Russian word counts), and I typically couldn't find the Russian equivalents of English worlds, and not the way around. I am convinced that English has way more words for basic concepts compared to Russian. But Russian words have a lot more inflection forms, and if you count all of them then maybe Russian will have more words in total. So the answer depends on how you count. | |
| Oct 20, 2015 at 23:19 | comment | added | moismailzai | @RegDwigнt given that there are about 250,000 non-specialized words in the English language, and of those, only about 20 (that's 0.008%) include the same letter three times, it is self-evident that the convention exist. That you are not aware of it is irrelevant -- 'convention' means 'the way in which something is usually done'. | |
| Oct 20, 2015 at 17:12 | comment | added | Hot Licks | @RegDwigнt - Well, I don't know any Russian, Chinese, or Hindu. I know a smattering of Spanish and just a touch of Norwegian. I chose to write about what I know. Do you have an objection to that? | |
| Oct 20, 2015 at 12:37 | comment | added | RegDwigнt | @HotLicks you say that like there's a wealth of languages out there that do like triple letters. Care to name a hundred or so? Because otherwise that's a rather pointless thing to say, innit. Russian has more words than English but exactly one with three consecutive Еs: длинношеее. Clearly, by comparison, English is clinically obsessed with trippling its Es. | |
| Oct 20, 2015 at 12:23 | comment | added | Hot Licks | @RegDwigнt - It is worth noting that all of the examples are either onomatopoeia, proper names, or suffixed words (and only 3 distinct variations of those). English does not like triple letters. (In part I suspect that this is purely practical -- triple letters (especially with, eg, "eee") are hard to accurately read and transcribe. | |
| Oct 20, 2015 at 10:34 | comment | added | RegDwigнt | The convention can't be all that strong, or really a convention at all, if I can spend a whole life on this planet without ever so much as hearing about it. Are you sure it exists? You yourself have provided examples to the contrary. I am most very confused right now. | |
| Oct 20, 2015 at 8:24 | history | answered | moismailzai | CC BY-SA 3.0 |