Astonishing Facts of The Power of Words, Vocabulary, and Writing Skills
The Enchanting Magic of Words
Words are beautiful, mesmerizing, amazing. Do you happen to feel, experience and think about them in this way? Aren't you caught dumbstruck with wonder on coming across some of those words? Didn't you pause for a moment and find yourself completely immersed in its bliss trying to understand its depth or pondering upon its coiling or usage? Don't you feel yourself in some magical world full of beautiful, awesome and enchanting words? There, definitely, will be such occasions in your life if you are fully receptive to them and are ready to capture those moments of enchantment.
Astonishing Power of Words
A World Without Words
Can You Imagine a World Without Words?
Suppose there are no words, no vocabulary to express your feelings and wants.
Think for a while you are banished to a speechless, wordless zone. You have access to only signs and sounds!
Ooh! What an awkward situation will it be for you?
You can't express your feelings and moods properly. You will be struggling hard to utter sounds and move your hands, eyes, lips and your full body in motion so that you may be able to attract somebody and communicate something. Is it not a hell?
But, it is not so now. You have all the words and you can say anything, express anything with your words. And, daily, you are inventing and coining more and more words to convey more perfectly and appeal more vividly. You are uttering daily hundreds and thousands of words and writing thousands of words. You even do not realize this fact as it has become a habit now.
Is it all not due to the enchanting magic and power of words?
Astonishing Facts About Word Vocabulary and Word Families
It is a well-known fact that there are total 26 Alphabets in English language containing 5 vowels of a, e, i, o, u and the rest 21 consonants. But, sometimes, y is also used as a vowel depending upon the word it is grouped to.
So, It is amazing to see that these 26 letters contribute to hundreds of thousands of words that are in use today- words of wisdom, words of love, words of magic, words of inspiration and words of wonder.
- According to "The story of English" -New York, Penguin Book 1992, the Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 cataloged words and another roughly about 500,000 uncatalogued words. So, it amounts to roughly more than 1,000,000 words in our vocabulary overall.
- Encyclopaedia Americana, Volume 10, 1999 mentions that there are around about 750,000 words in any abridged dictionary as of its publication date.
- Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, Volume 1, 1989 counts up to 615,000 words.
- Words need at least one vowel in a combination of consonants to be spelled as a word.
- But consonants may not be needed in some of the words like " I " or " a " which are used themselves as words.
- Sometimes we find using only a group of consonants as a word (without using vowel) in words like "Gr" or "hmm" during our colloquial usage.
- It is said that there are roughly 1,00,000 word families that are being used.
- A native educated English speaker, on an average, uses 20,000 word-families whereas an uneducated may be using around 10,000 word-families.
- And, you know this simple fact that if you are to read any book, you need to keep knowledge of at least 8000 word-families.
Words Used Depend on Abilities and Proficiency of a People
- You must be realizing this - usage of words depends on your capacity - your age, growth, and proficiency. Each person has his own ability to use words.
- Words used by a child, an adult or a more grown-up differ in volume and style.
- Similarly, the words used depend on your environmental brought up, your family culture and your professional backgrounds also. A mechanic, an accountant, a doctor, a scientist, a writer and a poet all have their own styles and abilities.
- A person in a more educated environment is enriched with more vocabulary.
- A creative writer is capable of using more descriptive and rhyming words with increasing vocabulary.
- An accountant, doctor or mechanic are more proficient with words of their own respective fields.
- Vocabulary is increased with communication and more interaction. But styles may not be improved too much. Writing skills and styles are mostly intuitive.
Word Puzzles
The Enchanting Power of Word Vocabulary of Top Successful Writers
See the magical flow of words in these following quotes from some great works of greatest writers: -
- "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us." - Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities.
- "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo.Lee.Ta." - Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita
- "Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo." - James Joyce, A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- And this one shows an enchanted flow of word power, each word starting with the letter "A" ---
- "Ages ago, Alex, Allen, and Alva arrived at Antibes, and Alva allowing all, allowing anyone, against Alex's admonition, against Allen's angry assertion: another African amusement.. anyhow, as all argued, an awesome African army assembled and arduously advanced against an African anthill, assiduously annihilating ant after ant, and afterward, Alex astonishingly accuses Albert as also accepting Africa's antipodal ant annexation."- Walter Abish, Alphabetical Africa.
Amazing Spell of Words
More Quotes Displaying Power of Words
1)From Oliver Goldsmith (Canadian Poet), "The Rising Village"
Here crops of grain in rich luxuriance rise,
And wave their golden riches to the skies;
There smiling orchards interrupt the scene,
Or gardens bounded by some fence of green;
The farmer's cottage, bosomed 'mong the trees,
Whose spreading branches shelter from the breeze;
2) From Oliver Goldsmith (Original) - "The Deserted Village".
"Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men, more murderous still than they; "
3) William Wordsworth's "The Daffodils" -
"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of, golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."
4) From John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" -
"Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;"
Magic of Words
Brain Games to Sharpen Vocabulary
What do you think?
Which of these poetical or literary genres do you like the most?
Famous Writers of the World and Their Works
Name of Writer
| His Life Period
| His great works
|
---|---|---|
William Shakespeare
| 1564 - 1616
| 154 sonnets, 2 long narrative poems, 38 dramas
|
John Milton
| 1608 - 1674
| Epic poem "Paradise Lost" & many poetry, drama and Prose works
|
Oliver Goldsmith
| 1728 - 1774
| Best poem 'The Deserted Village' Novel 'The Vicar of Wakefield' and two plays and other works
|
P.B. Shelley
| 1792 - 1822
| Great poems Ode to The West Wind, The Cloud and more than 50 other peotry and prose works
|
Charles Dickens
| 1812 - 1870
| A Tale of Two Cities, David Copper Field, among 15 Novels, 5 novellas and hundreds of short stories
|
W.B.Yeats
| 1865 - 1939
| A Nobel Prize for Literature with great poetry like "The Tower"
|
T.S.Eliot
| 1888 - 1965
| Also a Nobel Prize winner with great poetry like 'The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men" and 7 Dramas like ' Murder in Cathedral'
|
George Bernard Shaw
| 1856 - 1950
| Also a Nobel Prize winner, he wrote more than 60 plays, some prose and short stories.famous like 'The Apple Cart' and "Pygmalion"
|
Comments
Hi Venkat, Did you realise that your hub "Moral lessons inspiring quotes using Satakam genre by two most popular South Indian Telugu poets" seems to have comments disabled? I read it and wanted to comment but couldn't.
I love words! Very nice layout with great imagery, A+ hub
Ha ha. My recent experiences with all Indians recently, you, Surabhi, Sakshi, Sujaya, Chitrangada, both Hari's, Rajan, Deergha and more, have been very humbling. You are all great Souls. So happy to know you all. Much Love, Venkatachari, much ..
...and you have met Marilyn's Hub challenge in a most stunning and appropriate manner. I liked the video and the great poets and artists par excellence.
Your first quarter was different, more educational, more like Annart's here on Hub pages, but equally awesome, none-the-less. Great and creative work. Hari Om!
I have come back to read your article again VM. It is that kind of writing. One keeps finding little gems here and there, and it brings one joy.
I must admit that I could not help thinking about those terrible editbots. I wonder what they will do with the James Joyce quote ". . . . . . . .this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo." Keep an eye on it VM. Only the Lord knows what it will read like after the moon-men have a go at it!
You're welcome. Just thought you might be interested in that little snippet of info! I'll look up that book, thanks.
Great response to the challenge. The way we coin words is how we achieve our individual status as a human being, the way we influence our writing and thus others.
You've chosen some great quotes too. I love 'Jane Eyre', TS Elliot's work and Jane Austen's too but never got on with Dickens' style, though I recognise him, of course, as a great writer. I'm in the process of reading 'Lolita' for our book club discussion.
Well done for an entertaining and informative read.
Ann
PS: Did you know that our alphabet's 26 letters make up 44 phonemes or chunks of sound? With different ways to spell one sound it's no wonder some have trouble learning English! e.g. ai/ay; ou, oo, ough/....
I am incredulous at the fact that I have not read this before. sometimes, I am in a hurry and then forget to go back to what I had wanted to read.
I think it is a remarkable showpiece of what can be produced by a 'man of words' . Truly interesting and fascinating to read the various ways one can view a love of words, and most of us on HP are! The added value of insights into great quotes, and the statistics give this added depth. You have given us a great read, and I found it most enjoyable.
Venkatachari Sir,
You have really done lot of research for building this hub.
Thanks it is so good. Lot to learn and get inspired to do our bit of it too.
Hari
Very nice.
Great info on words.
This is a wonderful contribution to the challenge, Venkatachari. I loved reading your ideas and looking at your great illustrations. The quotations were interesting, too.
You did a wonderful job with this challenge Venkat. Very impressive and well researched. Great quotes. Voted up.
Good morning, Venkatachari M; what a wonderful example of all the outstanding uses of words. I knew people would elaborate in various ways on my challenge and you have certainly done a remarkable job of conveying many of the uses of words. Also, the statistics are added value. I think this is a great response to the challenge! ~Marilyn
For me, this is outstanding among the other articles responding to the challenge. What an interesting read! The Walter Abish quote is so unique. Thanks.
We are so fortunate that we can use our words to express so many feelings in unique and wondrous ways.
Thanks for sharing this with us...
Angels are on the way to you this afternoon ps
I too have a love affair with words and I liked your quotes that demonstrated beautiful usage of words by famous authors. I have read that English has many more words than other languages because it borrows words from there languages. I loved your word picture also. Voted up and I, B, U.
Interesting concept.
You so nicely presented this hub on a great challenge too.
Well done my friend. Nice response to the challenge, and you listed some giants in this fine article. Oh, to be able to write like some of these greats.
You've looked at words from many angles. They are certainly the tool of our craft and the quotes you've supplied show that so well. This is an excellent reply to the challenge.
Voted up, useful, and interesting.
41