The Daily Mail (U.K.) had this sad tale:
Teenagers have been warned they are becoming unemployable because they use a vocabulary of just 800 words.
The limited linguistic range also consists of many made up words and 'teenspeak' which has developed through modern communication methods such as text messaging and social networking sites.
Today Jean Gross, who advises the Government on children's speech, said urgent action was required to prevent children failing to find jobs because they are unable to communicate.
The majority of teenagers should have developed a broad vocabulary of 40,000 words by the time they reach 16.
Linguists have found, however, that although they may understand thousands of words, many choose to limit themselves to a much smaller range in regular conversation and on a daily basis could use as few as 800 terms.
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