Test Your Vocab

[kinboshi]

There should be some placebo words in there (there might be for all I know..) - if you check a word that doesn't exist it's gg.

I think there were, well there were some I didn't tick because I thought they were red herrings and actually misspelt versions of real words. But not sure if that's actually the case.

[rex008]

37,300

I did go back and check a couple I wasn't 100% on, but I was pretty much right on them, so I left them ticked.

I probably average a couple of books a week, from a fairly broad fiction/non-fiction range. And I usually read the News Review section of the Sunday Times front to back (even including Michael Winner!), which must increase vocab by at least 100 words a week .

And I know you should never start sentences with "And".

[Woodsey]

I think there are a few people in this thread that have either not done it properly or are full of shit! 

[mondatoo]

Too much hard work for my liking but I'd imagine I'd have got about 30k like most other blondes did.

[gatso]

Too much hard work for my liking but I'd imagine I'd have got about 30k like most other blondes did.

you do realise it's how many words you know, not how high you can count?

[Laxie]

24,500 and no way Kin had that many ticks.  He might have fleas though.

[EvilPie]

I think there are a few people in this thread that have either not done it properly or are full of shit! 

Definitely.

I can go through the list and add a load that I've heard of and could happily use in a sentence knowing roughly what they mean.

Ask me to properly define the word though which I think is the idea and I've got no chance.

[outragous76]

I think there are a few people in this thread that have either not done it properly or are full of shit! 

Definitely.

I can go through the list and add a load that I've heard of and could happily use in a sentence knowing roughly what they mean.

Ask me to properly define the word though which I think is the idea and I've got no chance.

i agree

i hesitated on "shard" - obv a word i know and could use, but define is altogether different

[millidonk]

25,600. Must admit i expected it to be a lot less.

Books read i do not. Me fail Engrish, dats unpossible.

[Redsgirl]

28,500 which is 56 words less than the average 33 year old according to the stats, but combining that with passing my eleven plus ten minutes ago, I'm starting to think I'm a goddam genius

[thetank]

Books don't contain any of those ridiculous words that are of no use whatsoever apart from trying to belittle people.

Disagree

I don't contest that there are some arseholes who use big words just to show off.

I'd raise the point of people who go to the gym to get buff. Some of them are arseholes pumping the iron and doing the crunches just to show their bods off and they think it makes them better than other people, but that's not the only reason to go to the gym. Some gym goers are definately not arseholes, they have a variety of reasons to attend and doing so enriches and improves their quality of life.

Similarly, with the words.

[Jon MW]

Books don't contain any of those ridiculous words that are of no use whatsoever apart from trying to belittle people.

Disagree

I don't contest that there are some arseholes who use big words just to show off.

I'd raise the point of people who go to the gym to get buff. Some of them are arseholes pumping the iron and doing the crunches just to show their bods off and they think it makes them better than other people, but that's not the only reason to go to the gym. Some gym goers are definately not arseholes, they have a variety of reasons to attend and doing so enriches and improves their quality of life.

Similarly, with the words.

In general I'd agree, there's no point in using a simple word which approximately describes what you're trying to say when there might be a more complicated one that is precisely correct.

But I think it's a question of degree - it takes a long time for a word to be officially classed as obsolete but there are quite a few which aren't really used for anything other than semantic showing off.

[Moskvich]

Books don't contain any of those ridiculous words that are of no use whatsoever apart from trying to belittle people.

Disagree

I don't contest that there are some arseholes who use big words just to show off.

I'd raise the point of people who go to the gym to get buff. Some of them are arseholes pumping the iron and doing the crunches just to show their bods off and they think it makes them better than other people, but that's not the only reason to go to the gym. Some gym goers are definately not arseholes, they have a variety of reasons to attend and doing so enriches and improves their quality of life.

Similarly, with the words.

In general I'd agree, there's no point in using a simple word which approximately describes what you're trying to say when there might be a more complicated one that is precisely correct.

But I think it's a question of degree - it takes a long time for a word to be officially classed as obsolete but there are quite a few which aren't really used for anything other than semantic showing off.

Agree in a way, and some of the words here may only be used for showing off. But disagree that there's no point using - or at least, knowing - the more complicated and more precise word. Or indeed a more complicated word that isn't necessarily more precise but which just conveys a subtly different idea. You could probably argue that no two words are exact synonyms, since word meanings change gradually through their use, and so the contexts in which they've been used previously come to be part of their definition. Words also have their own sound and register, which differentiates the effect that they have and so consequently their meaning.

At the root of it though, it doesn't really matter whether specific words are often used or not in spoken or written form. They still, if you know them or are aware of them, interrelate with thought, and therefore, all things being equal, more words will make/allow you to think better.

I'm not sure the idea that reading lots of books helps you with this test is necessarily really true. I suspect most people who do well in it do so largely because of their knowledge of other languages. If you did Latin and French (but mainly Latin) at school then you're going to understand and therefore hold on to a lot of these words once you've seen them somewhere (or even just know the meaning of them without ever having seen them before - deracinate, adumbrate, legerdemain, uxoricide etc), so accusations of cheating may not be very well founded. I wonder whether a wider knowledge of classical languages is a big reason why the over-50s have a greater vocabulary, as they say is the case at the end of the test.

[Claw75]

28,500.  Bit disappointed as this apparently makes me below average for my age and would have expected better of myself tbh.  Gonna take the opportunity to learn some new words though, lest I get caught out next time I'm in convo with the british cowboy or the brief

[redarmi]

28,500.  Bit disappointed as this apparently makes me below average for my age and would have expected better of myself tbh.  Gonna take the opportunity to learn some new words though, lest I get caught out next time I'm in convo with the british cowboy or the brief

TBH I would be surprised if that is true.  I would imagine that the average IQ on this forum would be way above the average and yet most seemed to have scored around the same with a handful of exceptions both ways.