How large is the  English Lexicon & how large is your lexicon?

There are two big dictionaries that possess half a million lexemes. One is Webster's Third New International, which claimed over 450,000 words in 1961. The other is Oxford English Dictionary which claimed over 500,000 entries in 1992. Of course the real number is actually more. When we compare these two dictionaries, we see that they lack headword lists significantly. These two dicitionaries differ from each other by their editorial emphases. The Oxford includes more historical references and British dialect items, while Webster involves regional American items. However none of them covers completely the vocabulary of the ' New Englishes' (part 5) in India, Singapore and Nigeria, where many new lexemes have been coming into the language. Even when we limit the edition to standard vocabulary, we can see that many items of the lexicon that could be involved in a dictionary are not discovered there. My previous post was about the differences between American and British English generally. As this post is about the English lexicon, here I will mention the differences of vocabulary  by saying that probably the major differences between American and British English lie in the choice of vocabulary. The same word or phrase is used for two different concepts. For instance mean: (AmE- angry,bad humored, BrE-not generous, tight fisted ), rubber: (AmE- condom, BrE-tool used to erase pencil markings).

What concerns to the size of the English speaker's wordstock, it is known that it is connected with a person's hobbies and educational background.  People who are fond of reading and read various books, containing rich vocabulary, they will obtain a large wordstock compared with those who don't read and instead prefer to do something else. I think that reading not only enlarges your vocabulary, but  it also helps to have an imaginataion and knowledge about everything that surrounds you. Moreover you can get acquainted with other people's culture by this way.