Hierarchy of Vocabulary

Question

AFAICS vocabulary seems to have a kind of hierarchy with say Level 1 being words like cat, dog, mummy, daddy, some of the first words you learn. As you grow up your vocabulary expands - by ten words a day I read somewhere recently. Then when you get to your teenage years you've reached say Level 6 and that's enough to get you by so you don't actively seek out definitions of words you don't know the meaning of.
Some people move on to the next Level with words like 'sardonic' which I would imagine most people here would know the meaning of - it's fairly commonplace but aisi on the next Level. Maybe on the Level after 'sardonic' you might get a word like (opens dictionary for inspiration) 'panoply' then maybe on the next level is 'recidivist' and so on and so on.

Obviously all this is highly subjective - though maybe it could be arranged in some kind of frequency order - but I wondered if there were sites anywhere that had this kind of hierarchy of vocabulary. I suppose what I'm looking for is a kind of 'words I should know the meaning of' site. Words that might fit the bill would be say 'tendentious' and 'mendacity'.

Any help greatly appreciated.
cheers
dd

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]. . . when you get to your teenage years you've reached say Level 6 and that's enough to get you by so you don't actively seek out definitions of words you don't know the meaning of.[/nq]
This generalization may be more passive than
many people really are. Some people actively
throughout their lives seek just for fun to enlarge their vocabulary (cf. long-running Reader's Digest page, "It Pays to Increase your Word Power," which adds an economic incentive). Lifelong readers
usually enlarge their vocabulary by coming across
new or unfamiliar words. (Some writers, e.g.
Anthony Burgess, delight in using some recondite
word in every chapter or article.) All this is quite apart from individuals' learning professional concepts or trade jargon, as many also do.
Other than for very young people, the notion of a
"Hierarchy of Vocabulary" seems to make no sense.
No hierarchy inheres in the language. The extent
to which DDE and I own the English language is
just as far as each of us can use it effectively.
Hierarchy has no role in this either.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)
dphillipson(at)trytel.com

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]AFAICS vocabulary seems to have a kind of hierarchy with say Level 1 being words like cat, dog, mummy, daddy, ... the meaning of' site. Words that might fit the bill would be say 'tendentious' and 'mendacity'. Any help greatly appreciated.[/nq]
Unfortunately, I cannot help you with your specific request for a site listing a hierarchy of vocabulary. But I would like to comment on your ideas.
By Level 6, as you have defined it, we should have all the nouns for the objects that surround us, and all the verbs whose actions we are likely to experience in everyday life. Level 6 is likely to include many of the simpler abstract ideas as well. Beyond Level 6, we start to encounter deeply abstract nouns, and verbs for actions we rarely see in operation. We also encounter technical terms, which are specific to our chosen way of earning a living. A carburettor is an everyday sight for the garage mechanic, but many nurses (for example) would not be able to name it.

I recently visited the dentist, who (at the start of the preliminary examination) prodded one of my teeth and dictated to her nurse (who was taking the notes) "Upper right 7, buccal cavity". OK, I thought, at my age I can expect at least one of my teeth to start buckling. When she followed that with "Upper right 6, buccal", I became thoroughly alarmed. For ***'s sake! My teeth are all buckling! I asked her if it was my diet that was causing the teeth to buckle. Thus a new word moved into my vocabulary, at the age of 61.
As we move into Levels 7 and 8, we encounter the strange phenomenon of words we understand, but never use ourselves. My personal list is words such as:-

buccal, factitious, solipsism, schism, oligarchy, internecine, moribund, emollient, episcopal, palliative.
Then, there are some words that I have to look up in the dictionary every time I encounter them. I never seem to learn, possibly because the word is ultra-abstract, "with nothing that I can grab hold of". Recently, I read the book "The Making of the English Working Class" by E P Thomson, which used the word "chiliasm" on approximately six widely-separated occasions. Each time the word re-appeared, I had to look it up again in the dictionary. I still haven't learnt, because I have had to look it up again to write this. Not only that, but my wife told me I was pronouncing it incorrectly.

Richard Chambers Leeds UK.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I recently visited the dentist, who (at the start of the preliminary examination) prodded one of my teeth and dictated ... that was causing the teeth to buckle. Thus a new word moved into my vocabulary, at the age of 61.[/nq]
-)
[nq:1]As we move into Levels 7 and 8, we encounter the strange phenomenon ofwords we understand, but never use ourselves. ... to look it up again to writethis. Not only that, but my wife told me I was pronouncing it incorrectly.[/nq]
The only other person to reply to this iirc said he thoguht the idea of a hierarchy of vocabulary was absurd. This seemed an odd statement. I think you've pointed out a general trend towards abstraction. The reason for my question is a long time ago I overheard two American students talking about their SATs. Vocabulary seemed to be, either explicitly or implicitly, a significant part of hte test. They were remarking at how a friend's parents were able to give a definition and a context sentence for a long list of SAT words. I remember when I did General Studies A-level there was a question 'what is a sinecure?'
Maybe hierarchy isn't the right word but there is some kind of progression in a similar way to, say, the questions on Millionaire. which are obviously increasingly difficult. I imagine the question setters having a pot with £32
000 questions in, a pot with £64 000 questions in, a pot with £125 000questions in etc etc. It's the same for vocabulary.

cheers
dd

Hierarchy of Vocabulary

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