How Many Words Do You Know? Researchers Say Over 40,000
I've always had a big vocabulary. In fact, in one of my (only) stellar academic moments, I tested at an 11th grade level in 7th grade. Too bad that and a dollar won't even get me a cup of coffee! But a surprising new study says most adults know 42,000 words . Now, I've met some people who I doubt know even half that many (we won't talk about political candidates), but the study has found that by the age of 20, a native English speaking American knows 42,000 dictionary words, according to newswise.com. "Our research got a huge push when a television station in the Netherlands asked us to organize a nation-wide study on vocabulary knowledge," states Professor Marc Brysbaert of Ghent University in Belgium and leader of this study at the web site. "The test we developed was featured on TV and, in the first weekend, over 300 thousand Dutch speakers had done it - it really went viral." Realizing how interested people are in finding out t...