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How big is your vocabulary?


Islander

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Remember, their normal range is normal for their sample, (not a random sample at all) which they identified as having SAT verbal scores of around 700. That is about two standard deviations above the general population of high school students intending to go to college, who scores centered around 500 on the verbal part of the SAT. THe group reponding is a rather elite bunch.

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I wonder how accurate is really is (although I fell inside their normal range).

Not very -- this survey is measuring using "old words" only, not new words, e.g., those that come from science and technologies, new culture, and newly adopted foreign language words. Go read Slashdot then see how many new words are represented in the preceding word survey - answer: 0 (zero). This is a major error... http://www.languagemonitor.com/no-of-words/

There is a reason why these old words are not being used today.

I did like this quote, however:

“Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.” —Evan Esar

I still miss William F. Buckley, Jr. - he was very entertaining...and impressive when you consider that English was his third language.

Chris

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Good case in point...

--This is the basic profit motive behind all free enterprise.

You try to find the highest or best price someone will pay, for the

least amount of content possible. This will assure maximum profit, and

maximize your return on investment.

Chris [;)]

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From A Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychological and Psychoanalytical Terms by English and English (very old, but the only halfway comprehensive one I've found):

Adiadochokinesis

Is a term that will bolster my thesis

That it's idle to seek

Such precision in Greek

When confusion it only increases.

Fittingly, the word has two meanings that are a little more nearly opposite than the same.

I, too miss Buckley (even though I disagreed with about 70 to 80 percent of his positions). From one of the reviews of the new film Paul Goodman Changed My Life:

"In this heady documentary, TV footage of left-wing social critic Paul Goodman being interviewed by conservative host William F. Buckley Jr. in 1966 makes one realize how low public discourse in America has sunk since then." - Andrea Gronvall

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