Talk:General Service List

I was stunned by the lack of quality of this article until I read this 'talk' page and understood why. It has been 10 years since those comments were written (they have also since been published in the peer-reviewed literature) and, still, this Wikipedia page fails to address any of it. Even the references provided 10 years ago have been ignored. Stunning! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.107.24.124 (talk) 20:54, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

A word of caution
I've tried editing the article's page to point out the fatal methodological problems in Engels' study. However, as has happened in the past, my warning to fellow linguists has been quickly removed by someone that, obviously, has not taken the time to read Engels' paper. I recommend that the person that maintains a deathgrip on this article read Engels' paper. If unable to understand Engels' paper, please understand that it is impossible for _any_ list of 3,372 words (Engels' measure of the GSL) to have relevant range over 10 texts of 1,000 word each. The math is simple. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.211.182.15 (talk) 15:30, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No, no. You are misunderstanding why your edits are removed. It isn't that we don't believe you or that we want to "hide the truth" or some such. The reason is that Wikipedia does not include original research. That is, as it is, YOU claim Engels' study contains "fatal methodological problems". You need to find a reliable source where this claim is found, then Wikipedia can report that such-and-such source makes this claim. Finding out for yourself by reading the material itself does not qualify: I hardly believe Engels claims his own study is flawed, and thus referring to it is not appropriate. Perhaps my explanation doesn't make sense to you, in such case read the Wikipedia policy. Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 08:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC).

How absurd. The "reliable source" is Engels' study which should have been read before writing this review. There is no need to claim "originality" nor "research" in my observation unless elemental arithmetic is considered such. To be honest, the entire wikipedia article on the GSL is full of factual errors, an indication of one thing and one thing only, namely, poor research on your part. Claims regarding the inclusion of "modern" words, for instance, reveal no understanding of frequency and range considerations as these are observed in corpora. Moreover, token coverage does not correspond to "general service" nor to the intentions of the authors of the Interim Report on which the GSL is based. Has any of you even heard of "Faucett, L., H. Palmer, E.L.Thorndike, and M. West. 1936. Interim Report on Vocabulary Selection. London: P.S. King and Son, Ltd."? Even a reference to "West, M. 1953. A General Service List of English Words. London: Longman, Green and Co." is missing from the article. What an absurd situation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.211.182.15 (talk) 17:46, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

GSL original entries & extended lexicalized listing
Extended Version of A General Service List of English Words

https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/languages/staff/711/professor-james-dickins

This source has both a listing of the [1929] original entries and a listing of [3919] lexicalized items.

Jansegers (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2021 (UTC)