{"id":1338,"date":"2013-03-31T13:55:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-31T13:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=1338"},"modified":"2026-01-15T17:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T17:06:07","slug":"3000-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=1338","title":{"rendered":"3,000 Words…."},"content":{"rendered":"

I enjoyed a post the other day by author Karen Dales<\/a>. She has written several books and was commenting, in her blog, on our limited vocabulary – 3,000 words. Apparently the average North American uses only about 3,000 words, as a working vocabulary. This is sad.<\/p>\n

I guess we can blame laziness or a shift in focus from reading and writing to video or other image related media. I know that I grew up with comic books. Then there is the school system that teaches to the lowest common denominator. So with every new generation, that denominator is lowered even more. I know that we can blame editors and publishers, who ask authors to limit their choice of vocabulary to a prescribed list of words. I have written about this before.<\/a><\/p>\n

Apparently Shakespeare had a working vocabulary of 54,000 words and I know that James Joyce made up words because he felt that the English vocabulary was too limited. <\/p>\n

Karen posted this hilarious video on her site. It’s the story of the Three Little Pigs<\/a> in an extended vocabulary.<\/p>\n

\n<\/object><\/div>\n

Expanding our use of language is a way of enriching our lives. We can do this by reading, using language purposefully (thinking before we speak), methodically adding a word a day, and\/or keeping a diary (blog) – to name a few.<\/p>\n

I am not a great reader, however, I do write a daily blog because it forces me to use language purposefully and in so doing, I might just find a new word, or another way of phrasing something. When things work out, I feel that I have enriched my day, especially if I have used a word, I have never used before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Two of the three little pigs – maybe<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\nOh yes, I almost forgot, I do take a picture a day, as well – a graphic way of enriching my life. Mental note – I need to add more captions to my pictures. It’s another way to use words and I admit I am lazy about captions. When a picture is worth a thousand words, I think why add a few more. Well, for the exercise of using words.<\/p>\n

Maybe I need to wage war on Wordless Wednesdays!!<\/p>\n

Have an amazing day!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I enjoyed a post the other day by author Karen Dales. She has written several books and was commenting, in her blog, on our limited vocabulary – 3,000 words. Apparently the average North American uses only about 3,000 words, as a working vocabulary. This is sad. I guess we can blame laziness or a shift […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1340,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions\/1340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}