The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-09-06
THE WORDS
IN COMMON USE.
The Number That an Ordinary Individual
Can Get Along With.
It Is Estimated That in Every Day Life From
One Thousand to- Three Thousand Will
Suffice ANY One.

Inc WUIuS Ill COlltDOH use ny ln6 OIulLldIy
individual have been estimated at from 1000
to 5000. and it is claimed that when one has
learned the meaning of that many words he
can carry on an ordinary conversation or
understand common or general reading
1t is also frequently stated that the vocab-
ulary of certain miners consisted of but
100 words. Whether this was al ac-
tual count or merely an estimate l
do not know. but should think that
it must be the latter In order to deter
mine the size of an ordinary vocabulary l
could think of no better means than to find
out the number of words used in some stan
dard work that is easily read and under
stood by everybody. Nor could l think of
any book better suited for the purpose in
view than that great English classic, Rob
insOn Crusoe." The copy of that work in
my possession contains AGO pages, and | first
noted down all of the different words found
on every tenth page Counting as separate
word what is given as such in the dlctlon-
ary). This probably gave more differ
enL words than forty-six consecuti We
pages would have done, because greater
number of subjects and incidents are dis
cussed and described.
NEW WORDS.
I then noted the new words on the
remaining nine of section Of ten pages in
the front part of the book, and then OF
section in the la tier part, in order to get
basis for e.timd ting the new words in the
rest of the book. The number of words on
the sixty-four pages counted was 300, and
if the percentage of decrease for each sec
ton of nine pages from the section counted
Just before 1t should be the same as for the
two sections counted there would be on the
remaining 1896 pages about 5000 words. 1t
may be. as would seem probable, that the
percentage of decrease would Increase after
awhile, but so far as counted there was no
sign of an increased rate of falling off. The
falling off was very rapid for the first
five pages, less rapid for the next
twenty, and after that not enough to
be evident unless the average of a num-
Der of pages was taken. 1t seems quite
certain. then, that De Foe. in writing his
account of the adventures of Robinson
Crusoe, used not less than 5000 or COCO
words. Children of 10 or - years read the
book with pleasure, and probably have
pretty clear idea of the meaning of nine out
of ten of the words they find in it. The
work probably contains most of the verbs
and large proportion OF the adjectives and
adverbs in common use, but there Is large
number Of nouns, both common and proper,
familiar to every child, which De Foe had
no occasion to use in this work. 1t IS prob
able, then, that to read ordinary general
reading in English underStandingly one
needs to be familiar with from 5000 to 10000
words. The same must be true for other
Grimm's "Marchen" contains vocabulary
OF between 1000 aud 5000 words, yet any one
who can readily read those stories needs
dictionary constantly by his side when read
ing ordinary German.
From the data at hand / should estimate
the vocabulary OF citizen of the United
States with a common school education and
of ordinary intelligence and reading at
about 10000 words and that OF a well-read
college graduate and of those who have pur-
r.NniNr ftNyn ut from ar
ward to perhaps 100000. Ones vocabulary
is usually nearly complete at 30 years of
age If but two words are learned each day
the vocabulary at that age would be only
10000. My records show that young chill
dren acquire new words more rapidly than
that.
VOCABULARY.
AS to the composition of vocabulary, /
find that in the dictionary about 60 per cent
of the words are nouns, little over % per
cent adjectiyes, and half that per cent
verbs, and fourth adverbs. PrOnouns,
propositions and cODjunctions, though used
in every sentence, constitute very small
part Of n general vOcabulary-none were
found In examining fifteen pages, or one In
every hundred, in the dictionary. OF
the 31O0 words obtained from "Robinson
Crusoe," little over 45 per cent were
nouns, "a per cent verbs. little over II per
cent adjectiyes, and 7 per cent adverbs.
Probably nearly every one is familiar with
larger proportion OF the verbs than OF the
nouns in the dictionary, but Robinson
Crusoe" is particularly rich in verbs. Many
of them are used only as DartciDleS, the
form in many cases being the same as for
the ad jectives, but they only counted as
verbs unless distinctively used as adjertives.
AS already suggested, the ordinary vocab-
ulary contains larger proportion of nouns
tnan are found in Robinson Crusoe," and
many that are not found in the dictionary,
although the proportion is probably not
greatly different from what 1t is in the latter.
In small voeabularies the proportion for the
different parts of speech is quite different.
Of the 2l5 words on the first page of
"CrusOe" that / counted, 8 per cent were
propositions. 10 per cent adyerbs, 10 per
cent pronouns, 6 per cent conjunctions, and
but "a per cent nouns. This must be borne
in mind in considering small vocabularies
like those of children.
As a matter of some general interest and
point of considerable importance in COLI
siderng the question of the pronouncing
vocabulary of children 1t is worth while to
notice with what letters of the alphabet the
greatest number of words begin. The let
tiers g, and begin nearly one-third of the
words in the English language. The fol-
lowing is the order for the letters most fire.
quently used in the dictionary: S, ., C, a.
I, b. r, m, d. +, e, h, ], G, W, o. v, n. u; in
Robinson CruSoe, s. C, p, a, I, b. r, IN, e, t.
W, b, ], !, &, o, n, Nv.
Further data are needed in order to con-
firm or correct the estimates given in this
article.-Science.