Words we say in a lifetime
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Have you ever wondered. How many words do we say in a lifetime?
A quick google search reveals an answer right away – 860,341,500 words. Amazing, job done. If only. As with any exact number
retrieved in answer to a complex question, it was, of course, just one (more confident) man’s estimate.
Gyles Brandreth’s to be more precise.
The English writer, broadcaster, actor, and former politician, made the estimate in the early 80s, based on the assumption that
an average person speaks about 30,000 words a day – or about 4 hours of continuous talking – over a lifespan of 80 years.
This is supposedly stated in the book The
Joy of Lex: How to Have Fun With 860,341,500 Words. I must confess, I did not go and read the book to verify. Moreover,
it has rebranded its title, and I couldn't find it on the official online bookshop, so
who knows 🤷🏼♀️. It seems to have been a real number, however. That is a lot of talking if you ask me. Enough to terrify
any self-respecting introvert. On a more serious note, it would be interesting to compare how things have evolved over time,
with the advent of text-based communication, desk-bound jobs, and especially in the past year – with many of us (me) home alone and
passing whole days without speaking to a single soul.
Anyway. The number itself is not a bad number. For our (very non-scientific 👩🏼🔬) purposes, however, we will take it as an upper estimate. We will come up with our own number, because why not. Let’s start by stating our assumptions. We shall take English, and focus on native English speakers, and in particular North American ones. We will consider voiced words only, rather than sign language or written communication. This is for no other reason but data availability. I would love to make a comparison with different languages, although some work has been done to show that the estimate will be not that far off. This has to do with the relationship of speech speed and information that different languages pack into a single word (or syllable to be more precise). It’s actually pretty interesting. ✨
Our final assumption will be that an average native English speaker born in the last, say 40 years for simplicity (I am a Millennial 🥑, of course my generation is the most interesting), speaks verbally continuously for an average of 1 hour a day every day. While I’m pulling this out of no-where, the number we arrive at in the end is in the same order of magnitude as many estimates I found, which you can check out in my references section. So we’re good.
Now then, dear reader, let us take our assumptions for a spin. 💫
Oh, and, we are going to be measuring our precious words in units of Harry Potter books 📚. The goal is to make you contemplate how rich you could have been if only you wrote your words down instead of wasting them into the air. I joke. It is just for fun. And to put things into perspective. To leave you with one more curious piece of trivia - on average, a Harry Potter book has 154,881 words in it. The total for all 7 books has 1,084,170.
Anyway. The number itself is not a bad number. For our (very non-scientific 👩🏼🔬) purposes, however, we will take it as an upper estimate. We will come up with our own number, because why not. Let’s start by stating our assumptions. We shall take English, and focus on native English speakers, and in particular North American ones. We will consider voiced words only, rather than sign language or written communication. This is for no other reason but data availability. I would love to make a comparison with different languages, although some work has been done to show that the estimate will be not that far off. This has to do with the relationship of speech speed and information that different languages pack into a single word (or syllable to be more precise). It’s actually pretty interesting. ✨
Our final assumption will be that an average native English speaker born in the last, say 40 years for simplicity (I am a Millennial 🥑, of course my generation is the most interesting), speaks verbally continuously for an average of 1 hour a day every day. While I’m pulling this out of no-where, the number we arrive at in the end is in the same order of magnitude as many estimates I found, which you can check out in my references section. So we’re good.
Now then, dear reader, let us take our assumptions for a spin. 💫
Oh, and, we are going to be measuring our precious words in units of Harry Potter books 📚. The goal is to make you contemplate how rich you could have been if only you wrote your words down instead of wasting them into the air. I joke. It is just for fun. And to put things into perspective. To leave you with one more curious piece of trivia - on average, a Harry Potter book has 154,881 words in it. The total for all 7 books has 1,084,170.