Focus on Education By: Antony Pellegrino Words and Words and Words and…. Part I

How often do you find yourself saying: “I know what I want to say but I can’t find the words,” or “I know what it means but I can’t explain it?” Well, the fact is, we frequently don’t know what we mean. We simply lack the vocabulary that is necessery to express ourself properly. The English language contains about 600,000 words, and from a selection like that, we can say anything we want to in several different ways if we just know enough words.

Little do we realize that the way we use words and the choice of words to express ourselves reveals more about us than the clothing or any other character trait we possess. Nothingnothing on earth – gives a person away to others more quickly than the way he speaks. Yet nothing-nothing on earth-gives a person more opportunities for advancement in life than the command of a good vocabulary.

If you are over 25 years old your vocabulary is already 95°/O complete. Only 5 % more will be added during the remainder of your lifetime-unless you do something about it. A sad but true fact is that the active vocabulary of the average adult is not much larger than that of a child 12 years old!

Success and vocabulary go hand in hand. This has been proven so often that it no longer admits of argument. Our knowledge of words is all that makes it possible for us to understand our associates or our friends. And it is only by words that we can impart ideas to them. Or command them to do our wishes. But the most important point of all is that we think with words. We can’t think without them! John Dewey, the great American educator, wrote: “Thought is impossible without words.”

It follows than that the more words we know the more clearly, powerfully and more broadly we will think. Also our ideas will be more intelligible. Words are the hangers on which ideas are hung. Without words the wheels of business and government would stop spinning. Without words we would still be savages.The accumulated knowledge of all that mankind has done would be lost without the magic of words. A rich vocabulary is the most precious possession any of us can have.

When was the last time we added a new word to our vocabulary? How many did we learn during 1998 or this year? When we read anything do we jump over words we do not understand or do we stop and look them up and make them a part of us? In other words are we doing anything to increase our vocabulary?

If any individual is to succeed in life he must develop a large vocabulary both in speaking and in reading. We are not too old nor is it too late to begin adding to our arsenal of words. It is easy to do but it takes will power.

When adults do not use good vocabulary, young people have no incentive to develop a good one either. Until we awaken to our own literacy deficiency, we will not see much improvement in the educational level of our children. Children rise or sink to the educational level of the people around them. They learn from what we do and from what we say and how we say it. By imparting the love of words to our children we will have given them one of God’s greatest gift to man–words to express the love and the joy of life. (continued).