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Merriam Webster says it's a contraction of "let us." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/let's https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/let's People m

Merriam Webster says it's a contraction of "let us." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/let's https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/let's People may look at you funny now, but less so in victorian England. (Edit: OED agrees, in case we don't trust filthy American dictionaries. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/let-s?q=Let%27s https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng... )

thaumasiotes 5y ago
I mean, if you want to settle this by appeal to authority, I already quoted CGEL, which is much more authoritative. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-grammar-of-the-english-language/A78402ABF5176AD283494180BCA2046F https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-grammar-of-th... How the word originated doesn't tell you what it is now.
- sdenton4 5y ago
  Not at all a nonsense word situation, as you said above, though. Also not sure I would say cgel > oed for authoritative sources of meanings of words in English... But you do you.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > Not at all a nonsense word situation, as you said above, though. Where did I say that? > Also not sure I would say cgel > oed for authoritative sources of meanings of words in English... But you do you. There are a couple of problems with this: - CGEL is not a source for the meaning of words; it's a description of the grammar of English. But that's fine here, because "how many words is let's?" is a grammatical question. - The OED is a source for the meaning of words, making it a bad choice for grammatical questions, which are tangential to its purpose. - The OED also deals extensively with the historical usage of words, even when that usage is not possible in the modern language. You have to be careful. - You haven't cited the OED. Your link goes to the unrelated "Oxford Learner's Dictionaries". The OED is at least a name with immense prestige; the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries is not at all the same thing.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

I mean, if you want to settle this by appeal to authority, I already quoted CGEL, which is much more authoritative. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-grammar-of-the-english-language/A78402ABF5176AD283494180BCA2046F https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-grammar-of-th... How the word originated doesn't tell you what it is now.

sdenton4 5y ago
Not at all a nonsense word situation, as you said above, though. Also not sure I would say cgel > oed for authoritative sources of meanings of words in English... But you do you.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > Not at all a nonsense word situation, as you said above, though. Where did I say that? > Also not sure I would say cgel > oed for authoritative sources of meanings of words in English... But you do you. There are a couple of problems with this: - CGEL is not a source for the meaning of words; it's a description of the grammar of English. But that's fine here, because "how many words is let's?" is a grammatical question. - The OED is a source for the meaning of words, making it a bad choice for grammatical questions, which are tangential to its purpose. - The OED also deals extensively with the historical usage of words, even when that usage is not possible in the modern language. You have to be careful. - You haven't cited the OED. Your link goes to the unrelated "Oxford Learner's Dictionaries". The OED is at least a name with immense prestige; the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries is not at all the same thing.