What a neat article, Father Steve--thank you for posting it! He certainly has some squashing arguments: Even sticking with something that we can agree is English, what about obsolete words? Variant spellings? Regional dialects? What about words that are widespread, but only in a highly limited subgroup, such as bone, "a pre-1946 Martin guitar made of Brazilian rosewood having herringbone purfling on its top," .

I think GLM has done a remarkable job suckering even the respectable press into believing that we're on the verge of adding the millionth word to English—at which point we'll presumably see another flurry of articles about GLM. shows yet again how vulnerable we allow ourselves to be to the media. I'd bet money that there'll be people who will be saying, "Oh wow, a million words now--cool!", and never stop to think, as Mr. Sheidlower points out, that all you have to do is start counting, and lo and behold: you'll have a million in no time!