Your vocabulary

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

EN World is one of the few places where I feel like I can employ any word (save obscenities) that I want and not feel like the general audience will revolt because they are unfamiliar with my diction.
Are gamers just more literate?
Are EN Worlders, specifically, more literate?
Grammar varies widely, even here, and I don't want to get off on that tangent, but I find that the words people choose here are slightly more sophisticated than what I normally expect to encounter outside an academic setting in the real world.

So how would you rate your vocabulary?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Among the people in my circle of acquaintences, my vocabulary is near the zenith.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Among the people in my circle of acquaintences, my vocabulary is near the zenith.

And do your peers correspondingly represent the zenith of speakers - or the nadir?

Check out the quiz I found: http://encarta.msn.com/quiz_44/By_Definition_A_Vocabulary_Quiz.html
I think of myself as a logophile, but I only got an 8 out of 10.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

They're a mixed bag, ranging from people with associate degrees to PHD's- the mode degree is probably a BS.

And I did 8/10 as well...I missed fiacre and mulct. Given my past test performance (on things like the LSAT & MAT), and the obscurity of some of those words I identified correctly, I'd have to say that 80% isn't too shabby- or common. Most of the words are archaic or completely outside of mainstream experience.

Mulct, for instance, is a word I should have come across in my professional experience, but haven't- I'm assuming its pretty old.

 

[Crothian]

My vocabulary is good, but I don't use a lot of the odder words even with people I know would understand them, never saw the point of it.

 

[The Lost Muse]

I have a fairly wide vocabulary, but unless I keep reading a wide variety of books, it tends to diminish.

Edit: On the other hand, I only got 5/10, and I guessed alot :\

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

My vocabulary is good, but I don't use a lot of the odder words even with people I know would understand them, never saw the point of it.

I don't go out of my way to use unusual words, by any means, but I do believe in trying to use whatever word is best suited to my purpose at the moment, and I do derive a particular pleasure when others use an infrequently heard word appropriately.

 

[Psionicist]

I know 54 different variations of the word vagina.

...

Seriously, my own (english) vocabulary is average at most simply because I mostly read english on message boards where people tend to use words everyone will understand. I like it when people use more obscure words, it's the only way I will learn them myself.

Edit. 5/10

 

[James Heard]

There's nothing more satisfying than belittling your fellow man directly to their face because you're able to correctly judge their essential ignorance and lack of vocabulary. I've caught a lot of flak from friends who haven't always appreciated my impromptu additions to their vocabularies.

Maybe it's just frustration that I can slip directly from Alabama Redneck to something more formal and less flattering without effort? Online I get more flak for complex oratories than offline, which I've come to recognize as peopel just being unwilling to admit that they have no clue what I've just said (until I express it in a southern accent I guess.)

 

[DarrenGMiller]

There's nothing more satisfying than belittling your fellow man directly to their face because you're able to correctly judge their essential ignorance and lack of vocabulary. I've caught a lot of flak from friends who haven't always appreciated my impromptu additions to their vocabularies.

Maybe it's just frustration that I can slip directly from Alabama Redneck to something more formal and less flattering without effort? Online I get more flak for complex oratories than offline, which I've come to recognize as peopel just being unwilling to admit that they have no clue what I've just said (until I express it in a southern accent I guess.)

I have the same problems. People hate playing Boggle or Scrabble with me. Actually, any word game for that matter. It greatly annoys my wife when I tell her, "I learned that word from D&D when I was twelve." or something along those lines. Gary Gygax was my greatest vocabulary teacher.

In high school, my friends told me that I was the only person they knew that could insult anyone, adults included, without using profanity and without allowing the insulted to realize exactly what I was saying about them.

DM