March 23, 2004

Collective authority  

I've found myself using Google more and more as a usage and spelling guide, basically relying on the number of instances of different variations as a sign of correctness. For instance, today I was arguing with someone about email/e-mail, and (for me at least) a couple quick Google searches resolved the question: e-mail gets 21.9 million hits, while email gets 279 million. Does taking the surface web as a usage authority have its pitfalls? Of course. But if people are using email 12 to 1 over e-mail, then maybe the standard-setters have it wrong. Anyway, I'd be interested to know if other people are using Google this way... certainly it should appeal to a democratic sensibility, to a conception of language as living, changing.

MORE: Mark Liberman (a professional!) is using Google the same way, and referring to Google hits as ghits.

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