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How Many Words? How many words? It is often said that the English language is particularly rich in vocabulary) but to make such a statement we need to know what words to count and what counts as a word. DAVID CRYSTAL meaning as the lock on a canal? English? And how many of Should ring (the shape) be kept HOwthesemanywordswordsdoesare atherenativein separate from ring (the sound?) Are speaker know? These apparently would you treat them as combina• such cases 'the same word with simple little questions turn out to be tions of old words: foster + brother, different meanings' or 'different surprisingly complicated. In answer care, and so on. This is a big problem words'? These are the daily decisions to the first, estimates have been given for the dictionary-makers, who often that any word-counter (or dictionary ranging from half a million to over 2 reach different conclusions about compiler) must make. million. In answer to the second, the what should be done. estimates have been as low as 10,000 What would you do with get at, get and over ten times that number. by, get in, get off, get over, and the Whose English are we People are, it seems, quite happy to dozens of other cases where get is used counting? drop all kinds of figures into their with an additional word. Would you lectures and publications (see Panel count get once, for all of these, or Sooner or later, the question would 1). The figures give the impression of would you say that, because these arise about the kind of vocabulary to great precision - though it should be items have different meanings (get at, include in your count. There noted that they are usually accompa• for example, can mean 'nag'), they wouldn't be a difficulty if the words nied by such emptying expressions as should be counted separately? In were part of standard English - used 'approximately', 'on average', or 'it is which case, what about get it?, getyour by educated people throughout the thought'. Nonetheless, the vagueness own back, get your act together, and all English-speaking world. Obviously does not stop organizations offering the other 'idioms'? Would you say these have to be counted. But what courses and exercises (at a price) that that these had to be counted about the vast numbers of words will enable readers to 'increase their separately too? Would you count kick which are not found everywhere • word power' - without ever providing the bucket (meaning 'die') as three words which are restricted to a these readers with the opportunity of familiar words or as a single idiom? It particular country (such as Canada, discovering what their current word hardly seems sensible to count the Britain, India, or Australia), or to a power actually is. words separately, for kick has nothing particular part of a country (such as How can we throw light on this to do with moving the foot, nor is Wales, Yorkshire or Liverpool)? apparently confusing area? Let us bucket a container. They will include words like stroller begin with the question of how many If you let the meaning influence (= push-chair) and station (= stock words there are in English - a topic you (as it should), then you will find farm) from Australia, bach (= holiday which has attracted almost as many your word count growing very cottage) and pakeha (= white person) estimates as estimators. The question rapidly indeed. But as soon as you do from New Zealand, do'ICP (= village) is complex for two reasons. It partly this, you will start to worry about and indaba (= conference) from depends on what you count as an other meanings, even in single words. South Africa cwm (= valley) and English word, and partly on where Is there a single meaning for high in eisteddfod (= competitive arts festival) you go looking for them. high tea, high priest and high season? Is from Wales,faucet (= tap) and fall (= the lock on a door the same basic autumn) from North America, fort- What counts as a word? Consider the problems, if someone asked you to count the number of Varying estlmates words in English. You would im• Shakespeare had one of the largest At two years old the average vocabul• mediately find thousands of cases vocabularies of any English writer, ary is about three hundred words. By where you would not be sure whether some 30,000 words. (Estimates of an the age of five it is about five thousand. to count one word or two. In writing, educated person's vocabulary today By twelve it is about 12,000. And there it is often not clear whether some• vary, but it is probably about half this, for most people it rests - at the same 15,000.) (Robert McCrum, et ai, The thing should be written as a single size repertoire employed by a popular Story of English, 1986, p. 102) daily newspaper. (Jane Bouttell, The word, as two words, or hyphenated. Guardian, 12 August 1986) Is it washing machine or washing• He [Shakespeare] has the largest machine? school children or school• vocabulary of any writer in English, Graduates have an average vocabulary children? flower pot, flower-pot or approximately 34,000 words, which is of about 23,000 words, fostered, I about double what an educated person flowerpot? Would you count all the would contend, by intensive tutoring. uses today in their lifetime. (John (Jane Bouttel, also The Guardian) items beginning with foster as new Barton, in The Story of English episode words: foster brother, foster care, foster 3) child,foster father,foster home, etc? Or ENGLISH TODAY No. 12 - OCTOBER 1987 11 night (= two weeks) and nappy (= Royal Automobile Club), AAA ( = DAVID CRYSTAL read English at Automobile Association of America), baby wear) from Britain, loch( = lake) University College London, and has since and wee (= small) from Scotland, held posts in linguistics at the University or reflect local organisations and dunny (= money) and duppy (= ghost) College of North Wales, Bangor, and at attitudes - with varying levels of from Jamaica, lakh (= a hundred the University of Reading, where he seriousness - such as MADD (= thousand) and crore (= ten million) taught for twenty years. He works Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and currently as a writer, lecturer, and from India, and many more. broadcaster on language and linguistics, DAMM ( = Drinkers Against Mad Regional dialect words have every maintaining his academic links through Mothers). right to be included in an English an honorary professorship in linguistics at Because these forms are dependent vocabulary count. They are English Bangor. He is the editor of Linguistics on 'bigger' words for their existence, Abstracts and Child Language Teaching you might well decide not to include words, after all- even if they are used and Therapy. Among his recent only in a single locality. But no one publications are Listen to Your Child, them in your count. On the other knows how many there are. Several Who Cares About English Usage?, and hand, you could argue that they are big dictionary projects exist, cata• Linguistic Encounters with Language often more important than the loguing the local words used in some Handicap. His most recent book is the original words - and that the original Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. of these areas, but in many parts of words may not even be remembered the world where English is a or known (as many people find with mother-tongue or second language, such forms as AIDS). Personally, I there has been little or no research. how much use is still made today of would include them in my word And the smaller the locality, the such early jazz-world words as groovy, count - but some dictionaries do not. greater the problem. Everyone knows hip, square, solid, cat, and have a ball? There are other marginal cases. that 'local' words exist: 'we have our Or how much use is made of the new What would you do with the names of own word for such-and-such round slang terms derived from computers, people, places and things in the here'. Local dialect societies some• such as he's integrated (= organised) world? Should London, Whitehall, times print lists of them, and dialect or she's high res (= very alert, from Paris, Munich, and Spain be included surveys try to keep records of them. 'high resolution'). Which words for in your word coun t? You migh t think But surveys are lengthy and expen• 'being drunk' are now still current: they should - especially knowing that sive enterprises, and not many have canned, blotto, squiffy, jagged, paraly• many of these words are different in been completed. As a result, most tic, smashed ... ? And how do we get other languages (such as M unchen and regional vocabulary - especially that at the vast special vocabulary which Espaiia). However, it isn't usual to used in cities - is never recorded. has not grown up in the drugs world? include them as part ofthe vocabulary There must be thousands of distinc• Word-lovers from time to time make of English, because the vast majority tive words inhabiting such areas as collections, but the feeling always can appear in any language. Whichev• Brooklyn, the East End of London, exists that the items listed are only the er language you speak, if you walk San Francisco, Edinburgh and Liver• tip of a huge lexical iceberg. down Pall Mall, you can refer to pool, none of which has ever where you are by using the words Pall appeared in any dictionary. Mall in your own language. The old The more colloquial varieties of Some marginal cases music hall repartee relied on this English - and slang, in particular • point: also tend to be given inadequate Estimating the vocabulary size of treatment.
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