Is Your Vocabulary Growing?

I read with interest in UK’s The Independent (yesterday’s posting) that the English language has almost doubled in size in the past century as we are living in a rich linguistic peak. 

There is this claim that the vocabulary is growing by 8,500 words a year. 

And after researchers from Harvard University and Google scanned five million books, they came to a total of 1,022,000 words in the language! Wow, that’s a huge wok of words! 

Professor David Crystal, author of Evolving English estimates that while there are over a million words in the English language, most readers of The Independent (of course!) probably know some 75,000 words, 50,000 of which they will use actively. 

But what is fascinating is that in comparison, Elizabethan English used approximately 150,000 words. So what this means is that the vocabulary usage is shrinking even as the vocabulary is expanding. 

I am helping the cause because when I blog, I make a conscious effort to use new words, different words, even difficult words as a way to enhance my use of the English language. You can say that in my own small way, I am promoting the English language.

 

The Malaysian Insider reported Monday that the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) president Hata Wahari (above) has been hauled up by his employers Utusan Malaysia over the union’s criticisms against the UMNO-owned newspaper. 

He will face a domestic inquiry on Thursday and is at risk of being sacked. If this happens, then it is really uncalled for because Hata has only been speaking the truth. 

Hata, elected in September last year, had been critical of his employers, as well as being outspoken about the freedom of the press and the importance of non-biased reporting. 

This Utusan reporter had accused the newspaper of practicing a “partisan” approach to reporting, saying that he had a responsibility to ensure that proper journalistic ethics were practiced by all newspapers in the country. 

NUJ general secretary Anbalagan Veerasamy defended Hata, insisting he was only exercising his duty to protect his fellow journalists and uphold media ethics. “NUJ president Hata Wahari had made his remarks as a union official, and Utusan is free to make a public rebuttal if it did not agree with NUJ’s statements”, he said in a statement. 

Executive officer for media interest group Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) Masjaliza Hamzah has also demanded that the Malay daily not punish the journalist for his outspokenness on the matters of press freedom. “This is his job and he’s doing his job as the president of NUJ. He does have a national stature, they would sometimes need to say critical things in the course of serving the national duty”, she told The Malaysian Insider yesterday, adding that he should not be penalized for it. 

She claimed that this was the only time that a NUJ’s leader has stood up to protect the integrity of journalists and not give in to unethical media practices. 

“Perhaps for the first time [Malaysian journalists are] getting the union they deserve. [T]his is the first time, an NUJ leader has come out with a strong statement that is critical of the media organization covering an issue, and I guess in this instance, it happens to be the media organization he also works for”, she said. 

Hata has accused Utusan of promoting racial rhetoric and he even called on the authorities to act against Utusan editors for fanning racial sentiment in their news reporting. 

In fact, it is widely acknowledged that Utusan has been a key factor along with former premier Mahathir Mohamad and Ibrahim Ali (of the ultra-Malay rights group Perkasa) in fomenting the greatest racial and religious discord the country has seen in a long, long time. Yet, no action has been taken against this newspaper! Of course, Malaysians know very well, why! (I won’t talk about the other two either because for sure, no one will touch them – not this present government anyway!) 

So Hata’s views do not surprise me. If we are familiar with Utusan’s demagoguery, then we know that Hata is being persecuted because he dares to speak up.