In the days of William Shakespeare
(1564-1616) and John Milton (1608-1674) there were hardly 60, 000 words
in English vocabulary.That has grown to over a million today.
Now more than 750 million people
use the English language. Only one third of them have English as mother
tongue.
An extensive vocabulary becomes
an important asset, because words are the building blocks of thought. They
are the means by which we understand the ideas of others and express our
own opinions in an effective and clear manner.
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Well
chosen words mixed with measured emotions
is the basis of affecting people. _Jim
Rohn
Words
fascinate me. They always have. For me, browsing in a dictionary is like
being turned loose in a bank.
-- Eddie Cantor
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An average educated person knows
about 20,000 words and uses about 2,000 words in a week.
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Despite its widespread use,
there are only about 350 million people who use it as their mother tongue.
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It is the official language
of the Government and business in many countries besides International
bodies like Olympics.
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More than half of the world's
technical and scientific periodicals as well three quarters of the world's
mail, and its telexes and cables are in English.
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About 80% of the information
stored in the world's computers (such as this text) are also in English.
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English is also transmitted
to more than 100 million people everyday by 5 of the largest broadcasting
companies (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, CBC).
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Technology also plays a huge
role in English's global triumph. Eighty percent of the electronically
stored information in the world is in English; 66 percent of the world's
scientists read in it, according to the British Council. "It's very
important to learn English because [computer] books are only in English,"
says Umberto Duirte, an Uruguayan IT student learning English in London.
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If in writing English you neglect
punctuation, or mispunctuate, your are liable to be misunderstood. For
the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox,
or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid.
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The process
of learning continues
from cradle to
grave.
Formal
education has less relationship to vocabulary achievement than you might
expect, indicating that people can improve their word power on their own.
This and the related linking sites will show you how to expand and to improve
your English vocabulary skills. Now, it is up to you to take advantage
of these rich vocabulary resources!
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New technologies are helping
people pick up the language, too: Chinese and Japanese students can
get English-usage —tips on their mobile phones.
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English-language teachers point
to the rise of Microsoft English, where computer users are drafting
letters advised by the Windows spell check and pop-up style guides.
In the temple town of Varanasi,
India, Sanjukta Chaterjee says she's astonished by the way her 7-year-old
son learns the language, through CDs and video. "Our teachers were strict
that we should practice, and speak the language till we were near-perfect,"
she says. "Now there's an additional technological finesse to learning
English."
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Words can have no single fixed
meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial
orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary
right to dictate how they will be used.
David Lehman (b. 1948),
U.S. poet, editor, critic.
Signs of the Times,
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