You will also enjoy Robert L. Ramsay and Frances Guthrie Emberson, _A 
Mark Twain Lexicon_ 9columbia, MO: 19380. "'He could curl his tongue 
around the bulliest words in the language when he had a mind to.' A 
total of nearly 8,000 words, combinations, and meanings have been 
selected from the vocabulary of Mark Twain's published writings for 
inclusion in this Lexicon."

Take care,

Bob

Judy and Bob Huddleston
10643 Sperry Street
Northglenn, CO  80234-3612
[log in to unmask]

"The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are 
insane." ---Mark Twain

On 5/6/2014 6:30 AM, Taylor Roberts wrote:
> Hi Carol
>
> If you Google the phrases "mark twain" and "oxford English dictionary"
> it turns up a cached page from the Oxford English Dictionary that
> states MT is "the 145th most frequently quoted source in the OED, with
> a total of 2390 quotations (about 0.07% of all OED quotations)."
>
> Stats:
> Total number of quotations: 2390
> Quotations providing first evidence of a word: 75
> Quotations providing first evidence of a particular meaning: 513
>
> That MT is the 145th most quoted source is less interesting than the
> latter 2 statistics, which reveal the linguistic innovation that you
> have asked about. OED requires access by subscription that you could
> get via your library. When logged in you will be able to click to find
> the actual words and usages. I wonder if it would also rank MT's
> latter two statistics with respect to other authors, as it would be
> interesting to know how he compares to other innovators.
>
> Source of above info is:
> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fLDs5SEAAdoJ:www.oed.com/view/source/a4374%3Frskey%3DdLNLaq%26result%3D145+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
>
> (Who knows how well or for how long the link will work!)
>
> Hope you have a great day
>
> Taylor Roberts
> Toronto, Canada
>
>