#71153
05/24/2002 3:53 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
A couple of passages from the Faulkner novel I'm reading, Intruder in the Dust, got me to ruminating about the extent of vocabulary usage and how many words we actually need to get by in everyday life, or to hold an intelligent conversation, or to write with enough authority to be deemed literate. I've known people, seemingly intelligent people, who have contoured their vocabularies over time so that they usually speak in a few dozen stock phrases, so much so that I can actually predict what they're going to say before they say it (for most of the time). But, strangely, this doesn't seem to dampen the beacon of their intelligence. When I was a boy and young man, the dictionary was always at my side as I swam though a sea of literature and non-fiction, and I wonder how many of those words I looked up actually adhered to my psyche and became a natural part of my discourse. But, since we're probably not focally cognizant of the words we're used to using, it's difficult to gauge by listening to yourself or reading your own writing how much your vocabulary has matured, or vice versa, over the years. I realize different levels of endeavor, such as science and academia, demand an expanded lexicon for a higher level of linguistic discourse, and that an average figure has been offered as the number of words in an average person's vocabulary. But how many words do we actually need to maintain an intelligent, civil discourse in the comings and goings of our daily work and lives? Should we settle for an average mean? A certain personal plateau? A jointly accepted amalgam of words and phrases? Is this really enough to capture our ideas and thoughts, and to express them, ideas both common and of novel proportions? Or should we ever strive to expand vocabulary (I guess most of us here are in this "ballpark"  ) to nurture the expansion and growth of linguistic usage, and so heighten the nuance, vitality, and beauty of language? I never "write down" to an audience (to people), as they say. But I know, more often than not, I find myself tailoring my spoken language to fit the situations and people I'm among. Is this fair to them? Is this fair to myself? (I know there's been some reflection on this in comment along the way, but I searched vocabulary, and found no threads or extended conversation about it). Here are the Faulknerian passages that inspired these ponderings: 'Maybe they'll decide to stay at home on a Sunday night,' his uncle said pleasantly, passing on: whereupon the man said almost exactly what the man in the barbershop had said this morning (and he remembered his uncle saying once how little of vocabulary man really needed to get comfortably and even efficiently through his life, how not only within the individual but within his whole type and race and kind a few simple clichés served his few simple passions and needs and lusts):
Wm Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust, pg. 47, par. 3
"And now too. But he still tried. 'But just suppose----' he said again and now he heard for the third time almost exactly what he had heard twice in twelve hours, and he marvelled again at the paucity, the really almost standardized meagreness not of individual vocabularies but of Vocabulary itself, by means of which even man can live in vast droves and herds even in concrete warrens in comparative amity: even his uncle too:"
Wm Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust, pg. 80 par. 3
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#71154
05/24/2002 6:21 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
I've thought about your questions on and off throughout the day, and my lame response is:
It depends. It really does depend upon a lot of factors to consider, and those factors have a lot to do with the personality make-up of the individuals.
Here are some of the things that come into bearing on how much a person can understand in normal interactions:
l. Context
2. Body Language
3. Whether you're in a social or professional situation (or others)
4. Whether you're reading or speaking and listening
5. Whether you have an interest in increasing your language skills with regard to comprehension
6. Whether you have an interest in increasing your ability to communicate better orally
7. Whether you have an interest in improving your writing skills
8. Whether you have perhaps a gift for spinning a good tale, so you listen pretty carefully to how other gifted tale spinners spin theirs
These are just a few considerations I brainstormed. I can think of people who do not speak well, yet their comprehension is great because they are pensive people who have a sensitivity for language.
I can think of people who may not have great language skills, but possess gifts in the visual arts that I can only appreciate as an outsider. The same goes for music--there are some musicians who may not be brilliant conversationalists, but can they ever communicate brilliantly through their music.
We had a discussion about numbers of words in an average person's vocabulary last week, I think it was, and there was some ridiculous citation from Newsweek, if the citation was correct, about an inordinantly high number of vocabulary words in the average high school graduate's vocabularly. I'd toss that one out, W'On, and say that probably the range is between 8 and 10 thousand for high school grads, and somewhere between 8 and 12 thousand for college grads. If you wanted to be privy to somewhat cognitively-laced conversations, you'd want at least the vocabulary of the high school grad; if you just wanted to communicate fairly intelligently without many specialized terms, then probably a 6th grade education would do the trick, especially if you threw in natural gifts for making language fun, such as use of metaphors and puns.
Your questions are wide-ranging here, so I'm just taking a first jab at them to open up the discussion among others here. What we have to realize is we have the ability to read publications, such as newspapers and magazines, without understanding every single word we read. (I use "we" loosely. It's hard for us word hounds to realize that a lot of people never bother with looking up definitions and get their understanding from context and next from a word becoming popularized through repeated appearance in the news, on televisions shows, on the radio, in magazines, and so on.)
And I'll throw out one more idea: Performances in which the face tells so much--in which an actor expresses so much through the face--Jodie Foster in "Nell"--Holly Hunter in "The Piano". There's communication without words that can touch you more than a barage of words. There's communication that is received well--and that that isn't.
So, I think your topic is an enormous one.
How many words do we need? Well, it depends. It depends upon what we need 'em for, how we're gonna use 'em, and the people we're gonna use 'em with...
My take,
WW
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#71155
05/24/2002 6:37 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
how many words do you need? a short while past, we did a thread on straw and hay-- and grasses. in Guns, Germs and Steel J.Diamond says there are 52 major varieties of grass.(techically, wheat, corn, and bamboo are all members of grass family-- there might be 1000 different kinds of bamboo, but bamboo is one of 52 types of grasses)
vocabulary depends on our technical needs. we came up with many different names for grasss used for hay/straw/fooder and bedding. (did we mention Kentucky Blue grass?--it is technically a bamboo.. N.Americas only native bamboo.)
Now, i have seen timothy grass, and bermuda grass, and even blue grass, i can't tell you why blue grass is a bamboo and bermuda grass isn't. but some one could.. maybe farmers, or biologists, or agraculturalist..
for me, grass is the green stuff the make a lawn, and needs to be mowed.
so my needs for names of grasses is rather limited.. and so is my list of words used to define grasses..
i like knowing someone has studied and classified, and named all the grasses, but i will pass on learning all they have to offer.
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#71156
05/24/2002 6:56 PM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 322
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 322 |
now he heard for the third time almost exactly what he had heard twice in twelve hours
I've noticed an interesting little phenomenon (in myself and others): when I tell a story over and over to different people, I often find myself using the same words and phrases each time (even though they are rarely the most brilliant words). It's not a matter of necessity (I do have more word choices at my disposal, and suspect I could come up with a more interestingly-told version once in a while); perhaps just laziness.
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#71157
05/24/2002 10:30 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Yes.
No.
I don't recall.
That would about cover it for most lawyers I know - when their witness is called to the stand!
Then, there is my Dad's answer that drove me nuts as a teenager..... "Let me think it over."
Now I use it on my children and drive them nuts. Heh Heh heh!
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#71158
05/26/2002 1:48 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
I've noticed an interesting little phenomenon (in myself and others): when I tell a story over and over to different people, I often find myself using the same words and phrases each time (even though they are rarely the most brilliant words).
Yes, boronia...you're mentioning this has me recalling the same phenomenon when I'm telling certain favorite stories over the years. Phrases and words seem to flow out in close repetition from moment to moment to fit those scenarios, and never seem to stray from a set linguistic recipe to fit the image. Not by choice, but they spring automatically each time from the subconscious in almost perfectly similar patterns. Not rehearsed monologues, but those tales one tells (or, at least, that I tell) from life's experience. Strange that something more original wouldn't assemble itself each time to keep the tale fresh to oneself at least, especially to those who pride themselves in their creativity and originality. Laziness? Convenience? Perhaps.
But would you tell a story the same way to a group of more intellectual friends than you would, say, at a family barbecue...colloquially speaking? Sometimes I find the words flow out with a different charge, though just as automatically, when I've been around certain groups of people for a length of time.
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#71159
05/26/2002 11:19 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
WO'N asked, how many words we actually need to get by in everyday life, or to hold an intelligent conversation, or to write with enough authority to be deemed literate. I've been desperately scrabbling around in my old Adult Literacy Teaching packs for an article which gave an extremely low figure for the number of words needed to communicate effectively in ordinary, day-to-day life. It was over 100, but well under 200. The second option (intelligent conversation) would need a far higher vocabulary and the third, higher still. However, My guess is that an intelligent conversation can be held using rather less than a thousand different words. I base this on my experience of teaching young adults from very poor educational backgrounds but who were, nevertheless, of good intelligence. Discussions of current affairs and general, mundane philosophical matters were frequent and managed to reach a quite deep levels. On another tack, I frequently use anecdotes as teaching tools and I definitely change the way I tell 'em depending on my audience, and the reason that I'm using that particular anecdote. But when I'm telling jokes, or recounting experiences to friends and family, they tend to become ossified into a fixed narrative, so that long suffering spouses and children can turn their eyes to heaven as the punch-line arrives. 
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#71160
05/26/2002 11:47 AM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
I've been desperately scrabbling around in my old Adult Literacy Teaching packs for an article which gave an extremely low figure for the number of words needed to communicate effectively in ordinary, day-to-day life. It was over 100, but well under 200.
Amazing. Would love to know your reference if you're lucky enough to come across it. It would also be interesting to know that body of words.
WW
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#71161
05/26/2002 1:22 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear RC: A vocabulary of under two hundred words would be enough to ask for food, clothing, a place to sleep, directions and a few other things. I doubt very much that it would suffice to be able to understand much of the newspaper, and very little of the laws which must be obeyed.
Somebody should write a computer program capable to testing size of vocabulary with reasonable rapidity. Then a reasonably accurate estimate of a person's vocabulary could be obtained fairly quickly, and administered to large numbers of people, an results analyzed to give good approximations of vocabulary size in different groups.
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#71162
05/26/2002 7:48 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
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#71163
05/27/2002 1:13 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
I've been desperately scrabbling around in my old Adult Literacy Teaching packs for an article which gave an extremely low figure for the number of words needed to communicate effectively in ordinary, day-to-day life. It was over 100, but well under 200.I amazed, Rhuby...I would never have guessed that figure to be so low for day-to-day speech! And about your joke-telling...as long as those punch-lines don't change! But, really, did you ever ruin a favorite joke by screwing up the punch-line and/or the set-up? I hate when that happens, but somehow I do it more often than not over the years, usually jokes I haven't told often. Seems that improvisational linguistic imaging doesn't work as well for set jokes as for storytelling, huh?
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