Adam Kilgarriff wrote:
>
> 4-gram is far preferable to invented words. It has the not
> inconsiderable advantage that everyone understands it and uses it already.
>
I guess that 4-gram is read "four-gram"
> The logic of fancy latinate forms in English resides in the depths of
> British class structure as promulgated through the study of classics
> at public (ie private) schools. It suits the ruling classes to baffle
> their underlings by using words which require knowledge of dead
> languages to understand. The translation of the bible into the "vulgar
> tongues" (eg from Latin/Greek into the languages people spoke) was a
> body-blow to feudalism but the work isn't finished yet.
>
Maybe you have some kind of class-fight feelings that don't let
you see very clearly ;-) but English has thousands of Latin and Greek
forms, so building new ones is not any kind of treachery.
Apart from the new technological words such as 'telephone'
'television' etc.
you can find many examples in yor own text above: "logic", "reside",
"structure"
"promulgate" "study" "language" "bible"... I'm no linguist, but I bet
they've
either latin or greek roots.
In addition, I found in WordNet: billion, trillion, and *quadrillion*.
regards
Lluis Padro