Language & Words — C1 English Vocabulary

Using language & words words in English

This is vocabulary for talking about vocabulary, and it opens with the best-known near-homophone trap in academic English: etymology is the study of word origins, while entomology is the study of insects. The page then sets out the branches of linguistics — each of which ends in -ics and therefore takes a singular verb — and separates the four words for informal language.

What to watch out for

• Etymology is words; entomology is insects

  They differ by two letters and are constantly confused, including in print. Etymology traces where a word came from and how its meaning changed. Entomology is a branch of zoology. A memory hook that works: entomology contains ent, as in insect names, while etymology shares its opening with etymon, the original form of a word.

• The branches of linguistics take singular verbs

  Semantics is, syntax is, phonetics is, morphology is — like physics and economics, these name fields and take singular agreement. Semantics studies meaning, syntax sentence structure, morphology word formation, and phonetics speech sounds. A phoneme is a unit of sound that can change meaning, which is why it is not the same thing as a letter.

• Colloquial, vernacular, idiomatic, dialectal

  Colloquial means belonging to ordinary conversation rather than to formal writing — it is a neutral description, not a criticism. Vernacular is the everyday language of a place or group, often contrasted with a prestige or official language. Dialectal means specific to a regional variety. Idiomatic means natural-sounding to a native speaker, which is a compliment and applies at any level of formality.

Words learners mix up

Three clusters here are worth learning as systems rather than as words: how new vocabulary enters a language, the machinery of word-building, and the terms for how a word is said. Each contains at least one pair that is routinely swapped.

Collocations that sound natural

Writing about language demands precision about which technical term goes with which verb, and several of these nouns take prepositions that seem arbitrary until they are learned as pairs.

• etymology

  the etymology oftrace the etymologya disputed etymologyfolk etymology

  Takes of. Folk etymology is a fixed term for a popular but false origin story — the kind that explains an acronym after the fact — and it is a technical label, not an insult.

• register

  a formal registershift registerappropriate to the registerregister-appropriate

  In linguistics, the level of formality a situation calls for. Note the collision with the everyday senses of a list and of recording your name: only the linguistic one takes adjectives like formal and casual.

• jargon

  technical jargonimpenetrable jargoncut through the jargon

  Uncountable, and almost always disapproving from outside the group that uses it. From inside, the same vocabulary would be called terminology, which is the neutral word.

• usage

  common usagea usage notein general usagedisputed usage

  The way a language is actually used, as opposed to how a rule says it should be. Uncountable in that sense, and countable for a specific instance: a usage first recorded in 1892.

• diction

  careful dictionpoetic dictionclarity of diction

  Two senses that pull apart: the choice of words in writing, and clarity of pronunciation in speech. A singer with good diction is understood; a poet with heightened diction has chosen unusual words.

• phrasing

  awkward phrasingrephrase the questioncareful phrasing

  The way words are put together in a particular instance, rather than the words themselves — which is why the phrasing is unfortunate criticises the arrangement rather than the vocabulary.

See the full C1 collocations list →

Formal, neutral or informal?

Terms about language are unusually prone to carrying judgements about the people who use it. Several of these are neutral in linguistics and loaded everywhere else.

• colloquialNeutral · often misread as negativeBelonging to ordinary conversation. In linguistics it describes a register with no criticism attached, but a learner told their writing is colloquial should hear "too informal for this task", which is how teachers use it.
• slangInformal · group-markedVery informal vocabulary specific to a group, and usually short-lived. Distinct from colloquial language, which is simply conversational; slang additionally signals membership, which is much of its point.
• vernacularFormal · sociolinguisticThe everyday language of a place or community, usually set against an official or prestige variety. Its history is in describing languages other than Latin, and it still carries a faint sense of the language of ordinary people.
• archaicTechnical · about ageNo longer in ordinary use but still recognised — thou, whence. Dictionaries use it as a precise label, so applying it to a word merely out of fashion overstates the case; dated is the milder term.
• antiquatedCritical · about suitabilityOld-fashioned to the point of being unfit for use. Where archaic describes a word’s age neutrally, this one complains — it fits systems and attitudes more naturally than vocabulary.
• parlanceFormal · always with a modifierThe particular way a group speaks. It almost never appears alone: the fixed frames are in common parlance and in legal parlance, and using it bare sounds wrong.
• garbledNegative · about transmissionConfused and distorted, usually because something went wrong in the passing on. It blames the channel rather than the speaker, which is why a garbled message is a different complaint from an incoherent one.
• ellipticalFormal · two sensesIn grammar, leaving out words that can be understood from context. In criticism, deliberately obscure. The second is a polite way of saying a writer is hard to follow on purpose.

Sentences to try

Four frames for writing about language. Note the singular verb in the second one.

• The etymology of the word is disputed.
• Semantics is the branch of linguistics concerned with meaning.
• The construction is colloquial but perfectly idiomatic.
• English and German cognates often diverge in meaning.

Questions about language & words vocabulary