While, as a general rule, the average person uses 1/10 of his vocabulary in his daily speech, there is a difference between oral and written vocabulary. Our daily spoken word vocabulary is significantly lower than or written usage or our reading comprehension.
For example:English has approximately 171,476 words in current use — according to the Oxford English Dictionary, – but the average native speaker uses, on a daily basis, only 1200 to 2000 of them ( EnglishEnglish.com ).
I tend to think that the average American uses far fewer words – between 300 – 700 in daily speech. The American vocabulary has been greatly diminished because of social media and the constricts of internet posting.
Tone of voice can give you away too. Once the wife and I had a fake argument, ie “I was wrong and you were right” “No, you were right and I was wrong.” And after a couple rounds the 2-yr. old got upset! (We reassured him nothing was wrong)
A good read is 1984 by George Orwell. It talks a lot about Newspeak, the politically correct language the government is forcing on the populace. Its goal was to supersede Oldspeak, or standard English, in that every statement would be a simple word. Bad would become “ungood”, or very bad was “doubleplusungood”.
Templo S.U.D. about 7 years ago
well, Elly’s plan of prevent cursing is off to an interesting start
howtheduck about 7 years ago
Frankly I would be a little nervous about any thesaurus where Michael was able to find the word “stoopid”.
jpayne4040 about 7 years ago
Come on Michael! Where’s the fun in shredding people if they don’t know what you’re saying?
Rosette about 7 years ago
I remember when my brother and I looked up ‘pee’ in our dictionary. The definition was “To peer”. What a letdown.
Space_cat about 7 years ago
Just 70 years ago the average persons English vocabulary was 10,000 words Today it seems to be around 1000, maybe far fewer thanks to emojis.
dlkrueger33 about 7 years ago
Emojis go WAY back. The Egyptians were the first to use them. We have come full circle.
Linguist about 7 years ago
While, as a general rule, the average person uses 1/10 of his vocabulary in his daily speech, there is a difference between oral and written vocabulary. Our daily spoken word vocabulary is significantly lower than or written usage or our reading comprehension.
For example:English has approximately 171,476 words in current use — according to the Oxford English Dictionary, – but the average native speaker uses, on a daily basis, only 1200 to 2000 of them ( EnglishEnglish.com ).
I tend to think that the average American uses far fewer words – between 300 – 700 in daily speech. The American vocabulary has been greatly diminished because of social media and the constricts of internet posting.
johnec about 7 years ago
And the current president has about a 200 word spoken vocabulary – and we aren’t sure if he can read at all.
phoenixnyc about 7 years ago
As John found out last week, the only thing more dangerous than Michael and Elizabeth at odds is Michael and Elizabeth working together.
tuslog1964 about 7 years ago
Tone of voice can give you away too. Once the wife and I had a fake argument, ie “I was wrong and you were right” “No, you were right and I was wrong.” And after a couple rounds the 2-yr. old got upset! (We reassured him nothing was wrong)
USN1977 about 7 years ago
A good read is 1984 by George Orwell. It talks a lot about Newspeak, the politically correct language the government is forcing on the populace. Its goal was to supersede Oldspeak, or standard English, in that every statement would be a simple word. Bad would become “ungood”, or very bad was “doubleplusungood”.
codedaddy about 7 years ago
I think they should begin with learning grammar, e.g. “there ARE about 50 words…”.
Dragoncat about 7 years ago
Way to go, Elly… You have given your children weapons of mass destruction.