Test your vocab

[Reach]

Re: Test your vocab

I smell some ludicrous balderdash in this thread.

Many of the words in the second half are insanely rare, and I'm a logophile. I'm sure many of you are clicking the box when you have no ****ing clue what the word means, or you think you do and you're wrong.


I used to administer the peabody vocabulary test to university students, and that test is substantially easier in many respects to many of these words and I can count on my fingers how many people I've seen define the word 'Terpsichorean' and 'Deracinate' correctly.

Oneiromancy is a cool word though. I think Oneiromancer would make for a pretty badass username.

[jugglinguy]

Re: Test your vocab

Terpsichorean*


of course i only know that because this extension couldn't find the definition, =P

[Superfreak04]

Re: Test your vocab

Your total vocabulary size is estimated to be:
45,000
words

[Xayphon]

Re: Test your vocab

Your total vocabulary size is estimated to be:
45,000
words

trollolololololol

[Superfreak04]

Re: Test your vocab

trollolololololol

:3

[LJRoX]

Re: Test your vocab

32000 words -.---

[PlayTrumpet]

Re: Test your vocab

I smell some ludicrous balderdash in this thread.

This.

And I call bull on the test itself. Tatterdemalion is a Marvel Comics character. wtf?

[rushyrulz]

Re: Test your vocab

22,400.

A lot of those words I've heard but don't have a definition for.

[Sephiroth28]

Re: Test your vocab

This.

And I call bull on the test itself. Tatterdemalion is a Marvel Comics character. wtf?

Actually it's someone who wears ragged or tattered clothing.

[BethanyBangs]

Re: Test your vocab

20,900 words. sad. :c

[Reach]

Re: Test your vocab

This.

And I call bull on the test itself. Tatterdemalion is a Marvel Comics character. wtf?

It's also a ragamuffin, which is incidentally also on this test ;D


But obviously this isn't reliable. The problem is, you can't actually test the person to see whether or not they're defining the word correctly.

I'm willing to bet most people with high scores here are simply clicking words they've seen before or words that look familiar.


I just asked a bunch of people if they knew what 'valetudinarian' meant. They all thought it meant the same thing as valedictorian >_>

In which case, they could click the box if they were taking the test themselves XD

[Reincarnate]

Re: Test your vocab

I only knew the word "ragamuffin" because my mother used to say I looked like one when I played out in the yard and got dirty, lol.

Reach: What score do you get?

And yeah this test has all sorts of problems with it but it's still fun if you're able to accurately gauge which words you actually know.

[smartdude1212]

Re: Test your vocab

I'm pretty sure I remember my English professor saying something like the average university student has a vocabulary of 20,000-30,000 words whereas Shakespeare's vocabulary surpassed 50,000 words.

It doesn't help that Shakespeare liked to make shit up though. :P

As for this test, I've seen nearly all of these words before, and despite not initially knowing the definition, I could figure some out simply because I've taken two Latin courses. Two examples that I can remember: uxoricide, cenacle.

As for Reach's valedictorian versus valetudinarian quandary (malapropism much? HARHAR), that would have easily skewed a lot of these results -- after all, legerdemain does not have anything to do with tomorrow. Pabulum, though like Pablum, isn't quite Pablum. A tricorn isn't a horse with three horns.

Williwaw was new to me (since when have I studied meteorology) but I certainly laughed at that one. Same goes for sparge. And hey, now I know what they mean!

My result was 33k, and when I went back and looked up the definitions of the words I was clueless about, I'm not surprised I didn't get them. A lot of those words are very field-specific, and unless you are a logophile or hyperlexic or channel Shakespeare's ghost every so often, they're bound to be confusing.

[supermousie]

Re: Test your vocab

Eh, 22,800 words.

[~kitty~]

Re: Test your vocab

It seems like according to this test, my vocabulary is very sparse in comparison to people my own age. I should be in the 20,000 range, but I got 14,200. I'm severely lacking in my ability to express myself with diction. "Son, I am disappoint."