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Vocabulary test


Fowllyd
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I've just done this interesting little test from Ghent University. Its creators estimate that I know 79% of English words, which ain't bad I guess. In the test, you are shown 100 letter strings which may or may not be English words, and you indicate whether or not you know the word. Of the 100, I didn't know ten of the real words and had two non-words that I identified as words.

 

Thought it might be of interest - Bletch will love it if no one else does!

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I've just done this interesting little test from Ghent University. Its creators estimate that I know 79% of English words, which ain't bad I guess. In the test, you are shown 100 letter strings which may or may not be English words, and you indicate whether or not you know the word. Of the 100, I didn't know ten of the real words and had two non-words that I identified as words.

 

Thought it might be of interest - Bletch will love it if no one else does!

 

 

Interesting yes. Thanks for the link. I scored 89%. Didn't say yes to any non-words, but missed some genuine ones according to them. Though since they send you to an American dictionary for any definitions, I am not entirely convinced they are using English English so to speak.

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At the end of that round Bletch, you scored 90% and no passes.

 

Excellent link Fowllyd.

 

Is Fowllyd an English word BTW? Oh, no. It's Welsh; isn't it. ;-)

 

As an aside I once did a short course at Ghent University on "Writing for the web" - how writing for a web audience is different from other audiences.

 

Their focus on language and the brain's processing of language is very impressive, but it's quite intimidating to be taught "English" by a foreigner!

 

BTW did anyone/everyone get "W*NKER" as a word? I did. Is it the same list every time I wonder? Probably not.

 

Also, I didn't get 100 words as I was promised. I was only shown 70 letter sequences, and identified 63 as English words, failed to identify 7 correct words, and didn't identify any incorrectly as English.

 

Some real brain farts in the words I didn't recognise as my mother tongue.

 

incuse

livability

readmit

poufy

gyps

teem

vena

 

Odd what happens when you feel 'under pressure'. Readmit I read as READ MIT, and Teem - doh!

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At the end of that round Bletch, you scored 90% and no passes.

 

Excellent link Fowllyd.

 

Is Fowllyd an English word BTW? Oh, no. It's Welsh; isn't it. ;-)

 

As an aside I once did a short course at Ghent University on "Writing for the web" - how writing for a web audience is different from other audiences.

 

Their focus on language and the brain's processing of language is very impressive, but it's quite intimidating to be taught "English" by a foreigner!

 

BTW did anyone/everyone get "W*NKER" as a word? I did. Is it the same list every time I wonder? Probably not.

 

Also, I didn't get 100 words as I was promised. I was only shown 70 letter sequences, and identified 63 as English words, failed to identify 7 correct words, and didn't identify any incorrectly as English.

 

Some real brain farts in the words I didn't recognise as my mother tongue.

 

incuse

livability

readmit

poufy

gyps

teem

vena

 

Odd what happens when you feel 'under pressure'. Readmit I read as READ MIT, and Teem - doh!

 

Fowllyd is a name I was given back in the 80's, based on the erstwhile rapper Schoolly D, but using my surname (Fowler); as my initial is D it worked rather well. A friend of mine came up with it, and I used it here as a forum alias as I felt justifiably certain that nobody else would have used it. Does look a bit Welsh though, I'll give you that bach.

 

I missed some real words in exactly the same way - reedit was one of mine, which reads more like something a frog would say than any English word. Hmm, maybe I'd hyphenate it...

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Fowllyd is a name I was given back in the 80's, based on the erstwhile rapper Schoolly D, but using my surname (Fowler); as my initial is D it worked rather well. A friend of mine came up with it, and I used it here as a forum alias as I felt justifiably certain that nobody else would have used it. Does look a bit Welsh though, I'll give you that bach.

 

I missed some real words in exactly the same way - reedit was one of mine, which reads more like something a frog would say than any English word. Hmm, maybe I'd hyphenate it...

 

Agreed. I'd have thought that re-edit and re-admit ought both to be hyphenated to be classed as words.

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Hmm, not convinced. 99% - 23% = 73%. There were 7 non-words that I claimed to know, two of which were 'tossee' and 'seepy'. Surely tossee is 'one who is tossed' and seepy is in my Chambers dictionary FFS. These damned foreigners need an english lesson, methinks. And what's happened to the hyphenated verbs? Tsk tsk.

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Hmm, not convinced. 99% - 23% = 73%. There were 7 non-words that I claimed to know, two of which were 'tossee' and 'seepy'. Surely tossee is 'one who is tossed' and seepy is in my Chambers dictionary FFS. These damned foreigners need an english lesson, methinks. And what's happened to the hyphenated verbs? Tsk tsk.

 

Not much good at maths either :) 99-23=76.

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Interesting yes. Thanks for the link. I scored 89%. Didn't say yes to any non-words, but missed some genuine ones according to them. Though since they send you to an American dictionary for any definitions, I am not entirely convinced they are using English English so to speak.

 

I scored 95% but I too thought that some of the words were americanised, to me some of the words were 2 words in all reality.

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Ha ha - thought as much. :D

 

F and J is all you need to know. Can't even remember which way round it was now. Still scored 95% and didn't get fooled by a single non-word. Got nearly all the tricky buggers as well, then again 20 odd years of state education in the 50s-70s was worth something then.

Edited by Window Cleaner
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