Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-06-14
TIE WORDS IN COMMON USE.
Does the Average Man Use 200 Words or
1000?

Atan educational meeting held few
years ago. a noted professor, made the
following statement: The best edu-
Gated person in this room viii not use
more than 600 or 700 words He also
assigned a smaller number to persons
of limited education. stating that an
ignorant man would not use more than
200 500 words. Ihad before seen state
ments Of similar import in public print,
and to test their correctness | began an
investigation of the matter.
The subject was brought anew to my
mind by observing an article in the
ChGutGuQltQ72 some months ago in
which Prof. Bancroft remarked: 1T
has been estimated that an English
farm hand has u vocabulary limited to
800 words. An American workman
who reads the newspapers may com
mand from 700 to 1000 words. Five
thousand is a large number, even for
an educated reader or speaker" This
assertion is much nearer the truth than
that of the Observation-Disclosures men
toned. For the benefit OF those who
may be interested | offer the result of
my study on the subject. An intelli-
nation and will arrive at substantially
the same results.
took Webster's high school dictiOn-
airy, edition 1878, containing 434 pages
of vocabulary, and examined each
word in the book. I made a note Of
those words which / supposed | had
used at some time either in speaking
or writing. [ counted the primitive
words and those derivatives whose
meaning is most at variance with the
primitive. Thus, [ count fright and
fruit, but not frightened, frightful,
frightfully, nor fruitage, fruiterer, fruit
full, fruitfulness, fruition, and fruit
tree. | omitted most of the compound
words, especially when the component
parts directly indicated the meaning,
as milk-pail, Westinghouse, rag-man,
but counted those whose significance
was not directly indicated, as crowbar,
quicksand, tinfoil. As the result Of
this examination | had 1928 words,
which | think myself have used.
There were 419 in A. 528 in B, 766 in
c, 400 in D, 235 in E, 500 in F, 279 in
230 in L, 476 in NJ, IA in n, 217 in O,
10 in p, 55 IN @, 397 in r, 954 in S,
454 in t, AZ in U, 148 in ', POP in w,
23 in X and Y, and 10 in 4.
Had | counted the various deriva-
tives in common use, it is probable the
number would be nearly double.
To make 4 further test Of words at
my command [ spent about two hours
writing from memory words in a.
was able to note down 537 words that
I could use if occasion required. This
is 80 per cent more than l had counted
from the dictionary. Should the same
proportion hold good in all the letters
it would follow that [ can recall from
memory 10, 700 words, all OF which are
familiar.
/ made another count, and came to
the conclusion that [ could give a fair
definition of at least $4,000 words in
that book, and would understand their
significance in a printed article or
spoken address.
The above estimates are based upon
my own experience and knowledge,
I because it was convenient to make the
experiment with myself. Every we'll
informed man will be as competent, if
not more so. Either professor men
JlOuCd Will HAVE - IiiO2C cAlCuuSCl NO-
cabuit-:y than | have
then took at random in the same
dictionary page in each letter, and
counted the words in common use. On
twenty-four pages there were 254 such
words. This would give $500 words
in use by persons of the most ordinary
intelligence. None of these lists in
clude any proper names.
At the time of making this study one
of my children was years and
months of age. / noted down (and
still have the LIST 213 words used by
| her in one day. They were words that
any Intelligent child would use, chiefly
names of household articles and COM
mon things, with the most ordinary
verbs and participles. [ did not hear
all she said during the day, nor do I
think she used all the words she knew.
| estimated her vocabulary at 400
words, and she did not know enough
to carry on any except childish CONVEX
satiOn.
From all of the foregoing observa-
lions [ drew the following conclusions:
Every well-read man of fair ability
will be able to define or understand
10000 or $4,000 primitives and princi-
pal derivative words.
The same man in his conversation
and writing, will use not less than s.
| 900 or 1000 words If he is literary
man he will command 1000 or 5000
more.
Common people use from 5000 to
1000 words, according to their general
intelligence and conversational power.
An ''illiterate man" Zone who cannot
| ready will use from 1000 to $500
words.
A person who has not at command
at least 1000 words is an ignoramus,
and will find difficulty in expressing
his thoughts, if, indeed, he have any to