On Knowing the Language

Dear Principal:
I thought about my interaction with the student. I don’t consider myself a racist person—though I have been told in this city that a white person is definitionally racist. I admit there was an element of judgment in my remark(s). I expect that a person who chooses to be in America and take advantage of the gifts we offer make an effort to learn the dominant language in America.
This is the message I would relay to the parent if given the opportunity. Your are welcome to pass it along:
Mine is not an uncommon or extraordinary expectation. If you want to best serve your daughter, you might want to advise her that she will run up against plenty of people who think like me in the world. Whether you judge that to be right or wrong, it is the reality, and it is better we hew ourselves to reality than to try to bend reality.
The ability to communicate carries with it power and the pass to many of the better things in this world. It is the ability to woo, to calm, to describe, to enroll, to disarm, to gracefully distance, to alter, to move the world. The pen is mightier than the sword, but only if those around us understand what we are saying.
If you want your child to have power and influence in this world, if you want her to be able to deescalate, to defend, to make others laugh, motivate or move them, to elegantly extract herself, or insinuate herself, you will call on her to be a master of our language.
You will take her on a field trip to any of the tony neighborhoods not so far from Bridgeport and let her know that what separates her from this is simply her mastery of language and her desire to learn.
Maybe she should take from her interaction with me the message that she should take on bettering herself. Three new words a day would be more than a thousand a year. Ten a day would start closing any gap really quickly.
She was in a biology class, just learning that vocabulary would bring her power, and I can’t really get to that with my broken Spanish if she can’t communicate in English.
Grok broke it down for me thus:
In the US, vocabulary size for native English-speaking high school graduates (typically age 18) is most commonly estimated at around 13,000–15,000 word families or base words. (Word families/lemmas group related forms like “run/running/ran” as one; full word counts are higher but less commonly used for these estimates.) This is passive/receptive vocabulary (words recognized/understood), not just active use in speech.
“Educated adult (high school)” is often cited at ~15,000 base words.
Broader adult ranges (including college-educated) are typically 20,000–35,000 words, with some large-scale studies reporting medians of ~42,000 lemmas by age 20 (growing to ~48,000 by age 60).
Vocabulary correlates strongly with education level: university graduates are often estimated at ~23,000 base words.
Distribution follows a roughly bell-shaped (normal) curve with significant individual variation. Factors like reading habits, home environment, and school quality drive the spread. Here is an estimated bell curve for US high school graduates (mean ~15,000 base words/word families; standard deviation ~3,000, consistent with observed spreads in vocabulary test data where 5th–95th percentiles span thousands of words):
[image:56]
Roughly 68% of HS graduates fall within ~12,000–18,000 words (±1 SD).
The full range is wide: lower end ~10,000 or below; higher end 20,000+ (especially strong readers or those headed to college).
Bridgeport, CT vs. its more affluent neighbors (e.g., Westport, Darien, Greenwich, Fairfield): There are no publicly available city-specific vocabulary size studies, but the gap is expected to be substantial (likely several thousand words on average, even among high school graduates) due to large differences in educational attainment, school quality, reading proficiency, and socioeconomic status (SES)—all of which strongly predict vocabulary.
Educational attainment (adults 25+): Bridgeport has lower high school completion (~76–78%) and much lower bachelor’s+ rates (~19–23%). Affluent neighbors like Westport (~98% HS+, ~78–79% bachelor’s+) and Darien (~86% bachelor’s+) are among the highest in the state and nation.
School performance: Bridgeport district reading proficiency is low (~21–23%); graduation rates ~74%. Westport/Darien/Staples High School area schools are top-ranked statewide with ~99% graduation, far higher proficiency, and much stronger SAT/college readiness.
SES context: Bridgeport has higher poverty and lower median income than its wealthy suburbs. Early childhood “word gaps” by SES (low-SES children hear far fewer words and start school with smaller vocabularies) persist and widen through adolescence, especially with differences in reading exposure and school quality.
A typical Bridgeport HS graduate would likely fall toward the lower half of the national bell curve (e.g., closer to 10,000–13,000 words), while one from an affluent neighbor would trend toward the upper half or college-graduate levels (18,000+). The exact difference varies by individual, but aggregate data on reading/education gaps suggest a meaningful disparity that affects long-term outcomes like college/career readiness.
These are averages and estimates—individual vocabulary depends heavily on personal reading, conversation, and curiosity far more than zip code alone. For the most current local education data, check the US Census ACS or Connecticut EdSight reports.
Yours Truly,
David R. Herz