WORDS

 It's estimated that there are about 700,000 words in use in the English language.  The Old English Disctionary has 615,000 entries and the Merriam-Webster dictionary has 470,000 in it's latest edition.  I've read that the average educated adult knows 20 to 35 thousand word families.

A group that tracks the language globally, says there are more than 3 million words in English if you include slang. Every year thousands of words fall into disuse and many more are added. Language is like a living thing; like an organism.  Will it ever die?  

You say "No" but I bet the Romans said that 2,000 years ago and look what has happened to Latin.  The answer is that Latin did not really die, it just evolved into several other languages.  We call them Romance Languages.  English is one of them.

So, what did you think of this entry?  Did anyone lift both palms up and say "6-7"?  Get in the swing, kids.