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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 4592472, member: 19463&quot;]A lot depends on where you learned English.&nbsp; The UK language and the US language have many differences (corn, lift, lorry, tram) and, within each, there are as many variations (Cockney, Creole, Downeastern etc.).&nbsp; </p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_English" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_English" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_English</a></p><p>On CT we have many people for whom English is a second language but more who do not realize the great variations whichever one they consider &#039;correct&#039;.&nbsp; Where I was raised, &#039;take away&#039; was another way to say &#039;subtract&#039; (four <i>take away</i> one is three).&nbsp; &#039;Carried out&#039; is more likely to mean &#039;done&#039; or perhaps be done by medical personnel as a way to going to the hospital, morgue or &#039;drunk tank&#039; while bouncers were more likely to &#039;throw out&#039;, &#039;give the boot&#039; (boot being a shoe rather than a car part), &#039;eject&#039;&nbsp; or &#039;toss&#039; an unruly patron.&nbsp; There are a hundred (thousand, ten thousand, myriad, lots of, countless) ways to say most anything and most of us only use a few of the options.&nbsp; That explains why they stopped printing Unabridged Dictionaries in hardcopy (on paper).&nbsp; Those who have studied the language to the point that the book would be useful tend not to be strong enough to lift the things. </p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.economist.com/johnson/2013/05/29/lexical-facts" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.economist.com/johnson/2013/05/29/lexical-facts" rel="nofollow">https://www.economist.com/johnson/2013/05/29/lexical-facts</a></p><p>I found interest in the numbers in the link above but I have neither the slightest idea how those numbers were reached nor whether they are even close to accurate.&nbsp; I have not the foggiest idea how many words I know nor how one might go about determining that number.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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