False - According to the Oxford University Press, publishers of the famous Oxford English Dictionary - which is often considered to be the definitive record of English in its current-modern usage, the question of counting words is nonsense:
It is impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it is so hard to decide what counts as a word. Is dog one word, or two (a noun meaning ‘a kind of animal’, and a verb meaning ‘to follow persistently’)? If we count it as two, then do we count inflections separately too (dogs plural noun, dogs present tense of the verb). Is dog-tired a word, or just two other words joined together? Is hot dog really two words, since we might also find hot-dog or even hotdog?
But does go on to offer some figures to consider:
The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words.
A half point should be awarded to @OMGFacts, as the English language is very much a living language, continuing to grow, and constantly changing.
original claim: @OMGFacts; source: Oxford University Press
