[ExI] How PISA surveys systematically overestimate Finland

[Anders Sandberg]

On 13/11/2012 05:23, spike wrote:
> Being a poster-child example of an English-as-only-language speaker, I 
> have often wondered why it is we have so many different words for the 
> same thing. Seems like such a waste of perfectly good neurons to 
> remember them all.

But it is so fun to use a quirky word! Sometimes it can produce real 
poetry of language, sometimes it is just droll.

I learned from Keith that when you count technical terms and compounds, 
language lists of English find several million words. That is almost 
like the number of species in the world: imagine if each species also 
got to carry it's own word. Humans and lions of course just carry 
"human" and "lion", but above the "deliberately"-bird soars and in the 
undergrowth there are the "abligurition" beetles, "spectroradiometer" 
ants and the "sabrage" fungus.

But this is of couse just my usual ultracrepidarian opinion.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University