Looks like John McIntyre, my blogging colleague at the Sun, and some scholarly linguists have issues with Paul Payack, the Internet word-counter and a three-time guest on Midday. I received an e-mail from an academic recently expressing concerns that I had given Payack some air time to talk about his Million Word March (he says English will soon have a million words) and the most common words and phrases of 2008. Sigh . . . . All I would say is: Lighten up, y'all. Payack is having fun and you can consider what he says with a grain of salt. (Several of my Midday listeners challenged the guy on his word-counting premises when he was on the air.) Some of what he says makes sense, some of it sounds like hyperbole. . . . . It also appears that some academics are -- oh, what's the word? -- jealous of the celebrity Payack has enjoyed for presuming to count words. "As you know," Payack wrote in an e-mail the other day, "linguists have long had a problem with our effort to count words 'since you cannot define a word.' However, how does attempting to do something linguists think is impossible make one a fraud?" Not my word, Paul, McIntyre's. Take it up with Iron John.