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Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 107, 7 May 1924, Page 18

The now' English Dictionary, begun l.v Sir..James- Murray in. 1888, contained' at the time of his doatii somctliinir lil-o 220,000 word.,. Yet the averagt ■ n£n ffets through lifo very comfortably with a stock of words, not exceeding 2000. ""Many more or less illiterate people can only com'imin.d from 500 to 1000 words, y»t-'cau make themselves comfortably understood \hven the better educated are sometimes, startled to realise.how many words they may know by sight without" having over uttered or written them. Some little time ago that monumental bluffer, D'Annunzio, boasted that ho used a vocabulary of at leatst 15,000 different words. If that is true he used, more than Shakespeare himself, and many more than Milton. In all Milton's works there can ,bo counted no more than 8000 different words, while the authorised version of the Old. Testament contains only 5642 distinct words. During the last two years Great Britain has spent £74,350,000 out of rates in lha lalist of poverty and mienit)loyraont.