Thursday, December 5, 2013

Words, Words...How many words do you use? How many did Shakespeare know?

From The Telegraph:

Teenagers 'only use 800 different words a day'

A generation of teenagers who communicate via the Internet and by text messages are risking unemployment because their daily vocabulary consists of just 800 words, the Government's new children's communication tsar has warned.

Vicky Pollard's catchphrase entered in humorous Oxford Dictionary
Vicky Pollard's 'yeah', 'no' and 'but' are some of the words used by teenagers 



















Read more...

FYI - From Wikipedia:

Native-language vocabulary size[edit]

Native speakers' vocabularies vary widely within a language, and are especially dependent on the level of the speaker's education. A 1995 study shows that junior-high students would be able to recognize the meanings of about 10,000-12,000 words, while for college students this number grows up to about 12,000-17,000 and for elderly adults up to about 17,000-21,000 or more.[9]

The importance of a vocabulary

  • An extensive vocabulary aids expression and communication.
  • Vocabulary size has been directly linked to reading comprehension.[8]
  • Linguistic vocabulary is synonymous with thinking vocabulary.[8]
  • A person may be judged by others based on his or her vocabulary.
  • Wilkinson (1972) once said," Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed."
Lastly, a mind-blowing number of words, guess how many words are used by Shakespeare in The Complete Works of Shakespeare? Click here for Answer.

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