Enormous Vocabulary
Read the passages given below and answer the questions that follow them:
Take a look at Shakespeare’s enormous vocabulary. He employed 9,36,433 words in his writings, out of which 27,780 are different words. The average person uses less than 1,000 words in writing, a little more than that in speech and has a recognition vocabulary of about 5,000 words. Some of the greatest writers may have twice this capability.
Today, English has a total vocabulary of two million words followed by German as a pathetic second with 1,86,000 words, Russian with 1,36,000 words, and French with 1,26,000 words. Thus Shakespeare in the 16th century used five times the number of words in modem German! Shakespeare is the most quoted writer in history. His plays have been translated into 50 languages. In the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations containing about 20,000 quotations, Shakespeare alone monopolises a staggering 60 pages (10 per cent). He coined 1700 new words. Many of the phrases and terms created by him are in daily use. Some of them have been used as titles for books and movies.
The vastness of vocabulary and the ability to see the relationship between words is one of the major factors in measuring genius. Shakespeare excelled any other human being in this aspect. His encyclopaedic knowledge of science, history, mathematics, classical literature, sociology,
AA’ psychology, law, Latin, French, politics, music and art acquired by studying books relating to almost every mental discipline and observing the habits and style of life of various sections of people all around him enabled him to draw ideas generously from all those sources for being used in his plays.
Questions
I. Answer briefly:
1. What kind of vocabulary did Shakespeare have?
2. How many words did he employ in his writings?
3. How many words does an average person use in writing?
4. How many words does English have in its vocabulary?
II. Vocabulary:
1. The most appropriate meaning of the word ‘huge’ in the passage is:
(a) average (b) enormous (c) vastness (d) generous
2. The word is given in the passage for ‘having control of the largest part preventing others to share it’ is:
(a) monopolises (b) enormous (c) huge (d) vastness
3. The antonym of ‘smallness’ in the passage is:
(a) vastness (b) little (c) enormity (d) huge
4. The most appropriate meaning of ‘liberally’ in the passage is:
(a) generously (b) enormously (c) vastly (d) staggering
Download the above Passage in PDF Worksheet (Printable)
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