Vocabulary Atrophy

[blazer1000]

“Obviate.” I know this word. I have encountered it in the past. I’ve used it. I also cannot currently recall what it means 1.

This happens to me often. I’ve encountered thousands of words 2, but I simply don’t retain them all due to use atrophy. It’s a problem with my primary language, but even more evident in my secondary one, German. Every time I hear spoken German, I can understand about 25% of it 3, definitely don’t know about a third or more of it, but the remainder consists of vocabulary that I recognize, and at one time did know off the top of my head 4, but no longer do due to disuse.

This problem tends to constrain my vocabulary. To some, it may sound like I indulge in excessive, multisyllabic verbiage. To me, I always sound as though I’m faking clever vocabulary by repeatedly returning to the same core group of so-called “big words.” I wonder: is there a remedy for this?

A related linguistic anecdote from high school springs to mind when this topic presents itself. During my sophomore year, my family and I hosted a German high school student 5. He reacted with surprise to vocabulary homework in our English class. He understood having it in our foreign language classes, but to have it in the class ostensibly dealing with our primary language prompted an “Americans are stupid” expression to cross his face 6.

That said, he probably had a point: his English vocabulary and comprehension often seemed to exceed that of many of my classmates.

1. Dictionary.com remedies that, of course and now having written that sentence, I am refreshed on what it means. [ ↩]
2. Across several languages, no less. [ ↩]
3. Being generous. [ ↩]
4. I just had a moment where I asked myself, “Isn’t there a single word for ‘off the top of my head?’ Case in point. [ ↩]
5. This isn’t the sort of year-long hosting that one often means, but rather a short two-week visit sponsored by our respective foreign language classes. [ ↩]
6. Or at least, that’s how it seemed to me. This might have been my own self-conscious, guilt-ridden reading of a much more innocuous reaction. [ ↩]

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