Use 'shrt wrds', become unemployable

Using vocabulary of just 800 words a day, can make today's generation
of teenagers unemployable. Their range is more limited than the 1,000
words regarded as the minimum for non-native speakers to understand
basic English, reports Sunday Times.

Jean Gross, UK Government's new adviser on childhood language
development plans to launch a national campaign to prevent children
failing in the classroom and the workplace because of their inability
to express themselves. Jean said, "Teenagers are spending more time
communicating through electronic media and text messaging, which is
short and brief. We need to help today's teenagers understand the
difference between their textspeak and the formal language they need to
succeed in life, 800 words will not get you a job."

Gross's campaign, which is likely to be launched next year, will mainly
focus on primary and secondary schools. "I want teenagers going into
workplaces and making videos of how people communicate and then putting
them on YouTube for others to study," said Jean.

According to the government's first children's communication czar,
today's teenagers avoid using a broad vocabulary and complex words in
favor of the abbreviated 'teenspeak' of text messages, social
networking sites and internet chat rooms. Their range is more limited
than the 1,000 words regarded as the minimum for non-native speakers to
understand basic English.

By the age of 16 the majority of teenagers develop a broad vocabulary
of 40,000 words. However, Linguists have found that many teenagers
choose to limit themselves to a much smaller range of words in regular
conversation. John Bald, Language Teaching Consultant and Former Ofsted
Schools Inspector said, "There is undoubtedly a culture among teenagers
of deliberately stripping away excess verbiage in language. When kids
are in social situations, the instinct is to simplify. That's partly
prompted by the habit of shortening language when texting but it's seen
as uncool to use complex vocabulary. It's part of a wider anti-school
culture that exists among some children which parents and schools need
to address."

According to a recent study from Sheffield University, a teenager knows
about 40,000 words and a graduate knows 60,000 or more. In the 1920s
Charles Kay Ogden, a pioneer of simplified language techniques, devised
Basic English - a lexicon of 850 words that was sufficient to
communicate.[link]