In 1911 Mr. R. C. Eldridge published the results of a study of 250
different newspaper articles occurring in four issues of a Buffalo
Sunday paper. Of the 43,098 words tabulated there were only 6,002
different words. _This again shows that the writing vocabulary even of
adults is comparatively small._
Cook and O’Shea studied the correspondence of thirteen adults,
tabulating 200,000 words, and found only 5,200 different words.
There is one underlying characteristic of each of these three studies;
viz., the writing, and therefore the spelling, vocabulary of individuals
is much smaller than we formerly considered it, and consists of
approximately 5,000 words. (The ALDINE vocabulary contains approximately
5,000 carefully selected words which should form the basis of the
writing vocabulary of an eighth grade pupil.)