Citation Excitation

At work today I was reading a scholarly book that had internal documentation giving credit to various education researchers for their findings.

There was really no reason for me to look closely at these. Until I read this one:

There are many words in the English language (Stahl, 2004).

I didn't know I should be giving Dr. Stahl credit for my general knowledge about the number of English words.

Moreover, apparently his research didn't confirm the high word count until 2004.

I guess the greater meaning of the heft of the dictionary was lost on Stahl as a kid. He needed a formal study.