Website owner: James Miller
On vocabulary
I recently read The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman and in doing so I encountered a lot of words that I didn’t know the meaning of. Or familiar words being used with meanings I wasn’t familiar with. So I spent a lot of time looking up the meanings of words. This is a common problem for me when reading the works of well known authors of the past, especially the works of foreign authors. In the case of foreign authors, the translator has a big vocabulary and translates from the original using words from his large vocabulary. Generally these words that stop me are words I am sure I have never encountered in my 82 years of life. If I have not encountered the word over a period of 82 years, what does that tell you? They are not words used by most people in ordinary conversation.
I would guess that my vocabulary is about as large as that of most people. An unabridged English dictionary contains a huge number of words and most people only actually use a small fraction of them.
It might seem nice to have a large vocabulary. Let me ask this question: Suppose I had a very large vocabulary. How much would I really use it? Would I want to use a word in either speaking or writing that very few people knew the meaning of? The answer to that question is an emphatic “No!” Why? Because I am a practical person and, whether speaking or writing, I want to communicate. If I don’t communicate I have failed in what I wish to do. And I definitely don’t want to confuse, embarrass or alienate the person I am trying to communicate with. If I am using words he is not familiar with, he may suspect me of pretentiousness, of an attempt to dazzle him with big words.
A large vocabulary may allow one to express himself with greater precision. But the purpose of language is communication and if you don’t communicate you have failed.
31 Oct 2021
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