Re: Word count of minimum vocabulary

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 12:17:42 GMT, John Atkinson
<johnacko@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:G7qug.5839$tE5.3562@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
sci.lang:

"Richard Herring" <junk@[127.0.0.1]> wrote...

Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes

[...]

(Thus one has e.g. "body-line" but not "bodyline".)

Only used in the fixed phrase "body-line bowling", a technical term from
cricket, so there's nothing much driving it to change into a single
orthographic word.

Nevertheless, it's happened. In cricket, "bodyline" is nearly always used,
at least in my country. Taking into account all meanings, "bodyline" is
more common than "body-line". Google gives half a million occurances of
"bodyline". When I ask it for "body-line", it gives nearly as many, but
when you look at them, most are actually "body line" -- two separate words,
with various meanings, including many that aren't compounds at all.

Better yet, search on <bodyline bradman> and <"body-line"
bradman>; the former gets ~35,100 hits, the latter ~686.
Substitute 'larwood' for 'bradman', and it's ~18,800 to
~558. (I don't recall having seen 'body-line' in this
sense; I probably have, at least a time or two, but
'bodyline' is what I remember. And my sources have all been
English.)

Brian
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Bradman today?
    ... having faced the likes of Larwood easily. ... i am not too familiar with cricket of pre-1970s (but it ... Aussie you are perturbed when anyone takes "untouchable" Bradman for a ... Following the infamous 1932-3 Bodyline tour a new law was ...
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  • Re: Modern Don?
    ... bowling attack to the cleaners, a few players took a team to the ... but Bradman is the greatest batsman who over a career took ... cleaners in the Bodyline series. ... Lower than his normal YES but dominating still. ...
    (rec.sport.cricket)
  • Re: Modern Don?
    ... bowling attack to the cleaners, a few players took a team to the ... In the 1932-33 "Bodyline" series, Bradman played in 4 ...
    (rec.sport.cricket)
  • Re: Modern Don?
    ... bowling attack to the cleaners, a few players took a team to the cleaners ... In the 1932-33 "Bodyline" series, Bradman played in 4 ... is well below his career average of 99.94. ...
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  • Re: Bradman bodylined in 1932-33
    ... The bodyline field which meant that playing the hook was an incredible ... I still wonder how Bradman would have faced an attack ... to see how he would cope with conventional swing. ... well on the strike rate front, though not as fast in his scoring ...
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