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Show )M,; 1 1 1( j yrmr-. 9st& X ft"H III' 1 MEDULLAR fes" j j Mll w'l xAJAir 9.000 warn 7 By PROEHL HALUER JAKLON Drawing by Ray Walters, 'f "JTOW many words do you rCfa know ? fr3 Shakespeare used about Ij F3 23,000 words. A six-yearly old child knows nearly a tlX. thousand. An uneducated 6 person knows" 3,000 to 5,000 v words. The "average" per- A son knows 8,000 to 10,000. ' A college graduate knows more than 20,000. Lawyers, doctors, and ministers know upwards of 25,000 words. An editor knows 40,-000. 40,-000. Woodrow Wilson used more than 60.000 in three of his books. Do words interest you? Have you any Idea of the number of them in American speech or in the English language? Come along, then, and have a chat with a "word expert," Dr. Frank H. Vlzetelly, managing editor of Funk & Wagnalls "New Standard Dictionary." Diction-ary." Doctor Vizetelly, who Is responsible re-sponsible for the figures in the fore-polng fore-polng paragraph, has had brought to his attention in the last fifteen years more than 515,000 words. He does not claim, of course, to remember the meaning of all of them, but it Is probable that he has a fairly good working vocabulary. "The range of a man's vocabulary depends on his occupation," Doctor Vizetelly says: "A churchman, familiar fa-miliar with the Bible, will know the meaning of 8,674 different Hebrew words in the Old Testament, and of f,624 Greek words in the New Testament, Testa-ment, or 14,296 words in all, with some duplicates, of course. This Is na exceptional case. "The physician or surgeon knows more than this number. Take a fuph summary of the matters with which lie must be familiar. There re in the body of man 707 arteries, "1 bones, 79 convolutions, 433 muscles. 130 nerves, 83 plexuses, and 103 veins total, 1.708. "In addition to this there are 1,300 I'ncterla, 224 eponymic diseases, 500 Pigments, 295 poisons, 88 eponymic Riims and symptoms of diseases, 744 tests, and 109 tumors, or a total of "I.9CS matters relating to his profession profes-sion alone. "Then there are the names of about 10,000 chemicals and drugs of which he must have more than a passing knowledge total, 14,908 in all, and e have not referred to the science ' hygiene or to allied professions, as dentistry, etc., or to his home life, his motor car, or airplane, and the. world 01 'urge, of which he is so Important 11 figure. Those can barely be covered cov-ered by 10,000 more approximately -i.OOO words. 'The lawyer also is an exception. The most popular law dictionaries list approximately 13,000 terms peculiar the legal profession, and comprehensive compre-hensive ns the law itself may be, It des not in general embrace the vocabulary vo-cabulary of the home, for which add 10.000 words, or 23,000 in all. How many words does a newspaper newspa-per editor know? One estimated the "Wit of his vocabulary by the aid of VHxJ I 6oo -poo an abridged dictionary. Under. each letter of the alphabet a page or more of words was selected at random and counted. He kept a record of primitive primi-tive and derivative words. That is, among the former was put "measure" "meas-ure" ; among the latter "measurable," "measureableness," "measured," "measurer," "meas-urer," and "unmeasured." Compound words whose meanings were clearly indicated by their component were omitted ; as "clock-work," "draft-horse," "draft-horse," "hard-earned." "Counting this way, he found an average of 20 primitive words and 35 derivative words on each page. This . would make, there being 814 pages of vocabulary In this dictionary, a total of 16,210 of the former and 28,400 of the latter, or 45,000 in all. "Next he took a page in each letter, and on it lie counted the words which it seemed any person of average intelligence in-telligence would be able to use and understand. On 24 pages there were 268 primitive words and 221 derivative, or nearly 9,000 in all of the former, and more than 7,000 of the latter. And, lastly, he made a count of very common words, such as even a poorly educated person could hardly escape knowing, and they were found to number 5,700 primitive and 3,200 derivative. "The department of psychology of one of our learned bodies recently investigated in-vestigated the matter of vocabularj acquisition, and disclosed the fact that the average child of from four to five years of age makes use of 1,700 words. "In its first year, the child acquired a vocabulary of from 10 to 20 words. During its second year this total was increased to 300 or 400 words, depending entirely upon en-, vlronment. Before the close of the third year, the larger of these totals was more than doubled, so that the vocabulary at command aggregated from 000 to 1,000 words. "Shakespeare's vocabulary has been put at 24,000, 21,000 or 13,000 words, and the apologist for a limited vocabulary vo-cabulary exclaims, "What did he not achieve with them !" "Had Shakespeare lived In our time lie would have advanced with our progress, and the strength of his vocabulary vo-cabulary would have been double the number of words he used, but please remember that many of Shakespeare's words are now archaic. "Many words fell into disuse when archery gave way to the gun, and things which were very useful when knighthood was in flower, eventually were discarded. The passing of the tournament and jousts witnessed the burial of a large collection of medieval me-dieval terms, even as the passing of armor did the same. "When falconry became a dead sport, its specific vocabulary was soon forgotten. Alchemy and superstition had a host of friends, but with the ndvance of our culture their lingo has been driven out of existence. "Every well-read person of education educa-tion and fair ability is able to define or understand; as used nearly or perhaps, per-haps, more than 50,000 words. The same person in conversation and writing writ-ing will command not fewer than 15,-000 15,-000 to 20,000, while a person who cannot can-not read but who has a good degree of native mental ability will command 5,000 terms. "But let it be clearly understood that If a new war breaks out tomorrow, whether it be between capital and labor, la-bor, or between races of different hue, or between the upper world and the lower world, the editor's vocabulary vocabu-lary will keep pace with the events as they develop. "Every social upheaval, even as every social reform, brings with It the means with which to describe its various phases, and our speech is like the tide ever at ebb and flow. "What is the longest word In the English language? Who knows? Here are, however, a few that have posed for the time being as the longest words in the language. "The word most frequently cited Is 'honorificabilitudinity,' which is to be found In Shakespeare's 'Love's Labor Lost,' act 5, scene 1, line 44. To the Puritan divine Byfleld we owe 'Inclr-cumscriptibleness.' 'Inclr-cumscriptibleness.' Doctor Benson is credited with 'antidisestablishmentar-ians.' 'antidisestablishmentar-ians.' To William E. Gladstone we owe 'disestablishmentarianism.' "An examination of any treatise on chemistry will reveal several like these: paraoxymetamethoxyally lben-zene, lben-zene, and tetrahydroparamethyloxy-quinoline. tetrahydroparamethyloxy-quinoline. "Among modern German words of cumbersome formation Is Schutzen-grabenvernlchuangaulomoblle, Schutzen-grabenvernlchuangaulomoblle, which contains thirty-five letters to express what the English indicate by the word 'tank' in its military sense. "There Is also the Turkish Association Asso-ciation of Constantinopolitan Bagpipe Makers, which Is designated In German Ger-man by Constantinopolitanischerdudel-sackspfeifenmachergesellschaft. Constantinopolitanischerdudel-sackspfeifenmachergesellschaft. "A word commonly attributed to Bismarck Is said to have been the result re-sult of his hatred of everything foreign, for-eign, particularly everything French. For this reason, he offered as a substitute sub-stitute for the French word 'npothl-caire, 'npothl-caire, the term 'Gesundheitswiederher-stcllungsmittelzusammenmischungsver-haitnisskundiger,' which he preferred to 'apotheker.' "Leading them all, however, Is a Greek word denoting a dish consisting of all kinds of dainties, fish, flesh, fowl, and sauces. Take a deep breath and try to pronounce: lepadotemach-oselachogaleokranioleipsanodrhnupo lepadotemach-oselachogaleokranioleipsanodrhnupo t-ri t-ri m matosilphiokarabomelitokarakech-umenokichlepikossuphophnttoperlstrer-a 1 ek t rtionoptokeplinlliokinklopeleiola-goosiri.'obaphetraganopterugon. rtionoptokeplinlliokinklopeleiola-goosiri.'obaphetraganopterugon. "Which, in the vernacular. Is just plain 'hash.' "The Flemish word for motor car Is . 'Snelpaardelooszonderspoorwcgpet rol-rijtuig.' rol-rijtuig.' " Now, aren't you glad, indeed, that you don't have to speak German, or Greek, or Flemish? Think how much hungrier a man would gi-t while asking ask-ing for hash In a Greek restaurant I |