Vocabulary
What counts as one's vocabulary? The words they use and choose to use in their writing? Or does it--and should it--include words which they are familiar with, and therefore might come across, in someone else's writing?
I enjoy many word games and need to have a pretty wide vocabulary for these games. Sometimes I run across a word which I have never seen before, and therefore isn't included in my vocabulary, or word knowledge. I try to make a mental note of it, but if I have nothing to relate it to, it doesn't stick.
When I was in school many years ago now, I was forced to read and learn Latin, and one of the advantages of that was to learn derivation of words, so it's easier to interpret words if they are from a Romance language. Does that mean I could technically have an even greater vocabulary insofar as many words might share a common root?
Tell me what you think, and how you define your language ability.
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I'm fascinated by words and word origins, and keep a Latin-English dictionary, as well as a Concordance of the Bible and Concordance of Shakespeare's works, all of which have become relatively dispensable with the introduction of Internet tools.
My word for the day you'll have to go look up (unless you know it):
What is the plural noun for ravens?
