Vocabulary

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

A question that was asked quite a few years ago:

Does the average American student have less vocabulary today than in days gone by?

September 7, 2007
*Dear Cecil:

A speaker at a recent school board meeting claimed the vocabulary of the average American grade school student was 25,000 words in 1945 and about 10,000 today. This is pretty disturbing if true. What do you think?

— Dave Evans, Bellingham, Washington
*
Cecil Adams’ response was:

*‘ll tell you what I think: with nonsense like this spreading unchecked, we should be worried about our kids’ critical reasoning, not their vocabulary. A 20 percent decline, maybe, but 60? No chance.

Despite being plainly absurd, your factoid has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and even science journals, each typically citing other such appearances as backup. At times it’s been attributed to Gallup polls or even* entomologists.

**Entomology **is the scientific study of insects. Etymology is the study of the history of words. Therefore, we must conclude that the speaker at the school board meeting was right on the mark in his analysis. After all, if Cecil Adams, who purports to be the world’s most intelligent human being, but confuses etymology with entomology then it’s obvious that those statistics must be quite accurate.

Unless, of course, Cecil is not the world’s most intelligent human being.

2

The column in question.
You failed to recognize that Cecil pointed out that the dumb “factoid” was attributed by dumb people to entomologists.

3

Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, Calitri, we’re glad you found us. Remember, though: Cecil never makes a mistake. On rare occasions, his editors do, but this was not one of those occasions.

The clue here is the use of the word “even.” Cecil says, as you quote, “… even entomologists.” It would not be in the least astounding if the comment were spoken by etymologists. What’s amusing is that an insect specialist named Cole Gilbert was cited in an article in the Oct 2000 Vancounver Sun as the source of the vocabulary figures.

The probable explanation is that Mr Gilbert was cited a few a month’s earlier in Harper’s (August 2000) about the luminescence of fireflies, but the vocabulary info was nearby on the page. We suspect that the Sun picked this up but blew it, and attributed the vocab info to Mr Gilbert. Hence, we have a reputable source quoting an entomologist about vocabulary. It was too funny to pass up, but I wish Cecil had explained a bit.

4

I think that that this is a real phenomenon. It used to be that a person with a large vocabulary was looked at as more intelligent. Today people have declared that using big words is a sign of a person who is snooty and one who wants those around them to feel stupid. This is reinforced by TV and movies which are written at a 3rd - 5th grade level.

5

Apparently, some people were bugged about low vocabulary.

6

I’m confused, is someone who has a large vocabulary not intelligent? It seems that the standards have just lowered, and language is the first indicator.

7

Ouch, that stings.

8

What’s confusing? So far, everyone has agreed with you.

Cecil’s original comment, “At times it’s been attributed to Gallup polls or even entomologists,” was correct. People who don’t know the difference between etymology and entomology *have *attributed the statement to entomologists.

Drewder said, “Today people have declared that using big words is a sign of a person who is snooty and one who wants those around them to feel stupid.” No one here claimed that this is a good thing.

Moriah said, “Apparently, some people were bugged about low vocabulary.” I’ve always found punning to be a great indicator of intelligence. As an indicator of a sense of humor… that depends on your audience.

9

No, they are intelligent, however our society looks down on people who don’t dumb their language down to the level of tmz.

10

It’s a matter of audience. If you’re using words that the person you’re talking to doesn’t understand, then a shift is in order if you want to be understood.

11

You need to spend some more time studying pre-contemporary pop culture; there’s nothing particularly new about this, aside from the growth of the fear of being intellectual among intellectuals, themselves, and even that was observed as far back as when C. S. Lewis penned Screwtape Proposes a Toast.

12

Buncha elitist snobs in here. Why do you need to know obscure scientific words in everyday life

13

Because I do science in everyday life.

14

Having a large vocabulary is useless if you don’t have reading skills. Kind of like having a Maserati and no driver’s license.

And perhaps more important is a sense of humor. If you’d had one, you wouldn’t have started this thread in the first place.

15

Perhaps it’s in line with the evolution of our media, in line with Neil Postman’s seminal book that basically states every dominant means of communication shaped thought and language. Perhaps the internet and TV have transformed everyday language in such a way that vocabulary has also decreased

16

MOD INTERJECTION: guizot, you know better than that. Personal insults are NOT permitted in this forum. Stop it. Stop it NOW. I was ready to issue an Official Warning, but I need more coffee, so I’m giving you an (undeserved) break.

Calitri is new here, and welcomed.

17

Much as I am loathe to impugne Cecil, what the hell does “less vocabulary” mean? Isn’t that like asking if someone with very few books has less library?

18

Got some facts and figures to back this up?

The claim that people are getting dumber and dumber with each successive generation has been going on for years, centuries. Even millennium. The ancient Greeks were at one time complaining that people were losing their ability to memorize long epic poetry thanks to that latest scourge causing people to become stupider – reading.

There has always been a sort of anti-intellecual bent in the U.S. populous. Look at Sara Pailin referring to the mid-west as “Real America” and the New York Times as the Lame Stream Media. How many times did Gretchen Carlson pull the dumb blond routine in order to play to the audience. She graduated cum laude from Stanford.

Look at the points scored by Spiro Agnew during the Nixon administration talking about the effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals..

We can go further back to the 1840 Log Cabin Campaign. This is where William Henry Harrison, who had long privileged roots, successfully cast himself as a common man who lived in a log cabin.

Look at the New Testament: Jesus is depicted as a poor child, a mere carpenter who could outwit those overly bookish Rabbis.

Anti-intellectualism has had long roots, and the idea that each generation is less intelligent than the next just doesn’t wash.

In fact, the general IQ of this country has been going up for at least the last 80 years.

19

While not rigorously grammatical, it appears that you figured out the meaning just fine.
Powers &8^]

20

Your analogy is misguided and illogical, for a large vocabulary is predominately acquired by reading. Furthermore a large vocabulary facilitates the reading and comprehension of abstruse literature.