An example of a word that, for me, was passive, is Cappadocia, used in a comment on this blog yesterday by my dear friend MiceElf (get it? I didn't until it was explained to me; yep, I'm dumb). There is no doubt I knew this word; if I had to guess, I would stick a pin in a map of the world somewhere around Italy. In the middle, to get as close as possible. And I would have been hopelessly wrong; it's a region of Turkey. Check out the comments on my pigeon fancier post for useful info about Cappadocia. Now that I have used it, twice, it has become one of my active words. 20,001.
This friend also introduced me to a completely new word: eremetical. The Free Dictionary tells me it means "characterized by ascetic solitude". So now I know, and I've used it. 20,002. Although I'm pretty sure it will shift to the passive category very quickly. If I remember, I will use it when I next speak to my friend Tony; he enjoys uttering unfamiliar words and asking me "do you know what that means?" I never ever admit that I don't.
There is a regular column in the Times, I think by Ann Treneman, which occasionally concludes with "word of the week". I might even email her to see if she will include eremetical in her next column. Credit will definitely have to go to MiceElf though.
I'd probably be breaching copyright if I used some of her column, so go check it out if you are interested.
Word Counter also gives me the following useful info:
At age one, a child will recognise about 50 words
At age three, a child will recognise about 1,000 words
At age five, a child will recognise about 10,000 words (that's seems crazily many; do they count derivations, e.g. seem, seems, seemed, seeming as separate words?)
At that rate of progress, someone of my advanced age will recognise about 1,083,360 words, according to a spreadsheet which I built. So maybe not so dumb. Maybe explains why I am so verbose.
(Although I encourage readers to comment on these posts, please don't point out the obvious flaws in my reasoning - that is, unless you're dumb enough to believe it)
Any new words, in the form of comments to this post, will be very welcome. Begin!
So, Cappadocia was of course where Saint Paul travelled (how, I have no idea as it took us days of weary coach travel across the vast plains of Eastern Turkey to get there) but it was worth it, and as for eremetical, it’s generally used to describe the life of the first hermits, which I fear so many of us have become these days, discovering that things we thought we needed are not so necessary after all.
ReplyDeleteSo, for new words discovered this week how about epicormic? That was on an interpretation board in the White Horse Country Park next to a very strange sculpture. My daughter and I have now learned a new word - not sure if son-in-law was very interested.