We need to fix a market rate to words. My dad called them "tenpenny words", but by the time I was an adult adjusted inflation made them "ten dollar words", but here you are saying they're only worth three dollars.
I propose the following formula:
(average cost of a year of college) x (average years of college) / (percentage of population with any college education) over (number of words in the English language) - (shared language)
That gives us: approximately $34,000 a year (averaging private school with public costs), most people take 4 years of English in college (indeed, in most places it's mandatory), 34% of Americans have at least a four year degree, there are 170,000 "in use" words (including "persnickety", meaning overly obsessed with small details like the cost of words, but excluding obsolete, forgotten, or replaced words, like "finickity" instead of "finicky", "wherefore" instead of "why", etc.), and 30,000 "common use" words that we all share as English speakers (such as "and", "as", "the", etc. -- words you hardly need to go to college to learn.)
($34k x 4 / 0.34) / (170k - 30k) = $400k / 140k = $2.86 per word.
Huh. Your "three dollar words" claim is actually valid. Consider yourself factchecked on the fly.
Now to go see how many words you can purchase by changing a tire...
We need to fix a market rate to words. My dad called them "tenpenny words", but by the time I was an adult adjusted inflation made them "ten dollar words", but here you are saying they're only worth three dollars.
I propose the following formula:
(average cost of a year of college) x (average years of college) / (percentage of population with any college education) over (number of words in the English language) - (shared language)
That gives us: approximately $34,000 a year (averaging private school with public costs), most people take 4 years of English in college (indeed, in most places it's mandatory), 34% of Americans have at least a four year degree, there are 170,000 "in use" words (including "persnickety", meaning overly obsessed with small details like the cost of words, but excluding obsolete, forgotten, or replaced words, like "finickity" instead of "finicky", "wherefore" instead of "why", etc.), and 30,000 "common use" words that we all share as English speakers (such as "and", "as", "the", etc. -- words you hardly need to go to college to learn.)
($34k x 4 / 0.34) / (170k - 30k) = $400k / 140k = $2.86 per word.
Huh. Your "three dollar words" claim is actually valid. Consider yourself factchecked on the fly.
Now to go see how many words you can purchase by changing a tire...