The women's vocabulary hoax

[Rachel Carrell]

Definitely by multilingualism, I would guess.
I.S.P Nation gives an average of about 1000 words acquired until the end of
high school. At that point I think it depends on your educational trajectory.

At 21:21 9/05/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Counting slang and jargon?
>
>I recently heard that an adult speaker has about 60,000 "words", but I
>don't think a source for this claim was given.  One would have to know the
>total.
>
>Vocabulary size must vary by factors like education, literacy,
>employment, skills, etc., perhaps even multilingualism.
>
>Amy
>
>On Wed, 9 May 2001, gabriella Modan wrote:
>
>> Today a student asked me if it was true that "women have 4000 more words
>> than men".  Has anyone ever heard of this myth or seen it discussed in any
>> scholarly or popular literature?
>>
>> Galey Modan
>>
>
>