I’ve been losing my words at an alarming rate. First it was my nouns. Now I’m losing adjectives. I seem to keep my handle on pronouns in English. (Proper Spanish pronoun usage is beyond me.)

One time when I was teaching high school English, I announced to the students, “Get out your…” Then I tried again. “Get out your, uh…” and I finished with, “Get out your hoochie watchies.” I just couldn’t find the word I wanted, which, as it turns out was NOTEBOOKS. 

When I blurted out, “hoochie watchies” a brave student raised his hand and asked, “Mrs. Farrar, do you really want us to get out our hoochie watchies?” The class erupted in laughter of course and I think I must have turned scarlet as I sputtered, “NOTEBOOKS!!! GET OUT YOUR NOTEBOOKS.” The word I wanted had finally trickled down from my brain to my voice. Whew. 

Now to get these obstreperous students back within my control. Never an easy task.

The point is, I have been losing my words for a long time. According to an article in The Economist, adult native speakers have between 20,000 and 35,000 words in their vocabulary and these words are acquired before middle age. According to them, not much happens after that, when it comes to adding words to one’s vocabulary. 

Reading, writing, playing Scrabble, or other word games will help though. That’s my opinion.

I wonder if anyone has done a study on how many words we lose as we age.

“As we age” is a phrase that comes up a lot for me now. It started in the doctor’s office about 20 years ago when I asked an innocent question, “Why is it so hard to go to sleep and stay asleep now?”

Don’t get me wrong, there are many positive things about aging. I just can’t remember what they are.