2 DECEMBER 1932, Page 6

The old question of how many words the average man

of culture needs for the expression of his thoughts is revived by a remark of M; Andre Siegfried iii his suggest- tive speech at the Anglo-French lunch at the Savoy on Tuesday. ApolOgizing (most unnecessarily) for his lack of fluency in -English, he observed that if he were using his own language " I should. be commander of an army of seven or eight thousand words. As it is I have only a mere battalion of some eight or nine hundred." Queen Victoria was said by Mr. Gladstone (or was it John Morley.?) to possess a vocabulary of two thousand Words. That must be well below the average.

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