BIG WORDS BOTHER ME

This article is concerned with the rate at which pupils can absorb new vocabulary. The author describes how he set about measuring rates of absorption, and comes to some thought‐provoking conclusions. It is suspected that vocabulary of boys is larger than that of girls, in spite of girls’ greater reading, because of the wider variety of experience permitted to boys. An intriguing section of the article reproduces some of the more creative howlers encountered in the course of the investigation. The final tentative conclusion, put forward for verification rather than as a proven fact, is that even clever children are capable of absorbing not more than 10 new words per week.