This quote from Niquette's web site, "proving" that English has about 38,000 words, does not impress me:
> I took down from my shelf The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which is not the OED but one I happen to like a whole lot. Now, there are 1,491 pages with definitions on them. I did a quick count of the words defined on a couple of randomly selected pages and got an estimate of 25.5 words. You can do the indicated arithmetic, of course, but I'll save you the trouble: 1,491 times 25.5 equals 38,020 words.
Did he claim it was a proof, or an order-of-magnitude estimate — in the same category as the job-interview question "how many gas stations are there in the United States?"
> I took down from my shelf The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which is not the OED but one I happen to like a whole lot. Now, there are 1,491 pages with definitions on them. I did a quick count of the words defined on a couple of randomly selected pages and got an estimate of 25.5 words. You can do the indicated arithmetic, of course, but I'll save you the trouble: 1,491 times 25.5 equals 38,020 words.