3,000 Words....

I enjoyed a post the other day by author Karen Dales. She has written several books and was commenting, in her blog, on our limited vocabulary - 3,000 words. Apparently the average North American uses only about 3,000 words, as a working vocabulary. This is sad.

I guess we can blame laziness or a shift in focus from reading and writing to video or other image related media. I know that I grew up with comic books. Then there is the school system that teaches to the lowest common denominator. So with every new generation, that denominator is lowered even more. I know that we can blame editors and publishers, who ask authors to limit their choice of vocabulary to a prescribed list of words. I have written about this before.

Apparently Shakespeare had a working vocabulary of 54,000 words and I know that James Joyce made up words because he felt that the English vocabulary was too limited.

Karen posted this hilarious video on her site. It's the story of the Three Little Pigs in an extended vocabulary.

Expanding our use of language is a way of enriching our lives. We can do this by reading, using language purposefully (thinking before we speak), methodically adding a word a day, and/or keeping a diary (blog) - to name a few.

I am not a great reader, however, I do write a daily blog because it forces me to use language purposefully and in so doing, I might just find a new word, or another way of phrasing something. When things work out, I feel that I have enriched my day, especially if I have used a word, I have never used before.

Two of the three little pigs - maybe

Oh yes, I almost forgot, I do take a picture a day, as well - a graphic way of enriching my life. Mental note - I need to add more captions to my pictures. It's another way to use words and I admit I am lazy about captions. When a picture is worth a thousand words, I think why add a few more. Well, for the exercise of using words.

Maybe I need to wage war on Wordless Wednesdays!!

Have an amazing day!!