If you list all English words in an order, a preferably standard/prototypical kind of order, what will be the first word on the list?
I’d say that if nothing else is specified, then the most correct choice of putting the words in an order is ti put them in alphabetical order.
If there is “the first one of all English words”, then it’s actually a bit difficult finding a definition for that where the first one would be something else than “a”.
Yeah, but it isn’t impressive avoiding a letter if you can use any word you want, and it doesnt matter what it means. “Without employing the second most frequent letter of English.” would make sense or “the vowel which is commonly listed first” or some sort of thing. I suspect they just didn’t know what lexicon meant and thought it sounded smart.
Ahh, I didn’t know that Americans* called dictionaries ‘lexicons’. In most forms of English I’ve heard, and in the field of linguistics, ‘lexicon’ is the complete set of vocabulary in a language, or subject. A dictionary is an alphabetical list of a lexicon, often with definitions.
*I’m presuming it’s Americans because mirriam webster lists the dictionary definition first, while OED and Cambridge only list that as archaic usage.
Plenty of archaic uses are still common depending on dialect. One of the more annoying aspects of Cambridge and OED is the assignment of archaic to older or lesser used forms that may still be common in parlance bet fell out of favor in most other ways.
Also I refuse to listen to what the English have to say on the English because they keep intentionally fucking with their dialect.
Quite right! Never trust the English! But what do you mean, they “keep intentionally fucking with their dialect”? All languages, dialects, sociolects, etc are constantly changing in different ways, do you feel like the dialects of England change more than other? Or that they do it more purposefully?
If memory serves they’ve had at least one government backed effort to relatinize certain words in their dialect. I do respect any country that does that on an intentional and purposeful level, it’s why I don’t respect the French and why I have gripes with the Icelandic.
If you can remember anything more about that I’d be really interested, as langauge reform is a big interest of mine. As far as I’m aware, there’s been no successful langauge reform in Britain, and even the few attempts (George Bernard Shaw’s simplified spelling society and a labour MP in the 50s who failed to pass a bill in Parliament) were all for simplyfing and regularising English spelling (so that ‘give’ would become ‘giv’, because it doesn’t rhyme with five, hive, dive, etc) not re-Latinizing anything.
The last significant change in English spelling I can think of was when Webster introduced his “American” spelling in the 19th century and changed ‘honour’, ‘centre’, etc to their US versions.
I totally agree that this is something that happens naturally, and probably shouldn’t be interfered with by a government. When it has been successful, it has been about giving permission for official langauge to reflect current usage. Telling people they must write ‘hav’ instead of ‘have’ is not going to work because even if it’s illogical it’s such a high frequency word that it is minimal effort to add, and then ignore, the ‘e’. But allowing school children to start writing ‘thru’ instead of ‘through’ might actually work.
In what sense is it the first letter of the English lexicon? Lexicon ≠ alphabet
If you list all English words in an order, a preferably standard/prototypical kind of order, what will be the first word on the list?
I’d say that if nothing else is specified, then the most correct choice of putting the words in an order is ti put them in alphabetical order.
If there is “the first one of all English words”, then it’s actually a bit difficult finding a definition for that where the first one would be something else than “a”.
In the sense that Alphabet has an ‘a’ in it.
Yeah, but it isn’t impressive avoiding a letter if you can use any word you want, and it doesnt matter what it means. “Without employing the second most frequent letter of English.” would make sense or “the vowel which is commonly listed first” or some sort of thing. I suspect they just didn’t know what lexicon meant and thought it sounded smart.
I think the description “first letter” is easily understood if you remember what a lexicon used to look like.
Ahh, I didn’t know that Americans* called dictionaries ‘lexicons’. In most forms of English I’ve heard, and in the field of linguistics, ‘lexicon’ is the complete set of vocabulary in a language, or subject. A dictionary is an alphabetical list of a lexicon, often with definitions.
*I’m presuming it’s Americans because mirriam webster lists the dictionary definition first, while OED and Cambridge only list that as archaic usage.
Well I’m neither English or American, but to me the word lexicon means encyclopedia. It’s still alphabetical.
It also means a person’s personal vocabulary… Aka a personal dictionary.
Plenty of archaic uses are still common depending on dialect. One of the more annoying aspects of Cambridge and OED is the assignment of archaic to older or lesser used forms that may still be common in parlance bet fell out of favor in most other ways.
Also I refuse to listen to what the English have to say on the English because they keep intentionally fucking with their dialect.
Quite right! Never trust the English! But what do you mean, they “keep intentionally fucking with their dialect”? All languages, dialects, sociolects, etc are constantly changing in different ways, do you feel like the dialects of England change more than other? Or that they do it more purposefully?
If memory serves they’ve had at least one government backed effort to relatinize certain words in their dialect. I do respect any country that does that on an intentional and purposeful level, it’s why I don’t respect the French and why I have gripes with the Icelandic.
If you can remember anything more about that I’d be really interested, as langauge reform is a big interest of mine. As far as I’m aware, there’s been no successful langauge reform in Britain, and even the few attempts (George Bernard Shaw’s simplified spelling society and a labour MP in the 50s who failed to pass a bill in Parliament) were all for simplyfing and regularising English spelling (so that ‘give’ would become ‘giv’, because it doesn’t rhyme with five, hive, dive, etc) not re-Latinizing anything.
The last significant change in English spelling I can think of was when Webster introduced his “American” spelling in the 19th century and changed ‘honour’, ‘centre’, etc to their US versions.
I totally agree that this is something that happens naturally, and probably shouldn’t be interfered with by a government. When it has been successful, it has been about giving permission for official langauge to reflect current usage. Telling people they must write ‘hav’ instead of ‘have’ is not going to work because even if it’s illogical it’s such a high frequency word that it is minimal effort to add, and then ignore, the ‘e’. But allowing school children to start writing ‘thru’ instead of ‘through’ might actually work.