Do You Outfox People Or Are You Easily Outfoxed?

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Today I came across a word I had never seen before, namely 'to outfox'. It's not too difficult to understand, at least not for a German. English and German belong to the same family of words, but more importantly, the cultural background is more or less the same. We know that the fox is a sly animal which can deceive its opponents. Nevertheless, I looked it up. I like etymology. It can be fascinating to learn where in the world a word originated and how it travelled until it arrived in another language. 'To outfox someone is to defeat (them) at something using quick thinking or sneaky tricks. Some of the most popular fictional detectives cleverly outfox their foes. You can attempt to outfox your opponent at poker using tricky strategies and bluffs. A political candidate can also try to outfox a rival, either through smart debate tactics or sneakier, more underhanded means. Outfox has been used in this way since the 1930s, from the old-fashioned verb fox, "to delude or deceive," which stems from the idea (popular in folklore) of foxes being wily or tricky. On average, you might encounter some form of the word outfox about once every 85.648 pages when you read books and articles.' What makes me write this post is the bizarre information in the last sentence of this article. Firstly, how many books does the researcher have to check to get this 'on average' result? Secondly, who needs this precise explanation? '85.648 pages'? Are you sure? Not 85.647 or 85.649? This is science gone crazy. Thirdly, why do this job at all? I can understand that someone may comb through a book in order to find out how often a name is mentioned, but a rare term like 'to outfox'? Even if the researcher uses a computer, he's got a screw loose in my opinion. Now you've learnt something new with which you can impress your colleagues, friends and relatives. When you've done so, drop me a line! ---- I wanted to add a photo of a fox, but it doesn't work. :-(