Letters to the Editor

Dear Madam, With reference to Mr Godfrey Sceats' letter in the August issue of Aslib Proceedings, the short answer to his comment is that it is recognized practice with respect to multiple words to count them as the number of their constituent parts. Thus, ‘Überlebenswahrscheinlichkeiten’ would count as two words: ‘Überlebens’ and ‘Wahracheinlichkeiten’; similarly ‘Eisenwasserstoffstrom‐regulatorröhre’ would count as five words: ‘Eisen’, ‘Wasserstoff’, ‘Strom’, ‘Regulator’ and ‘Röhre’.