Tongue tied

At Under the News, I learned, in one post, two things.  One is amazing, one sad.  The amazing thing is that the English language now boasts more than one billion available words, a number that defies my limited imagination.  The sad thing is that the average American uses only 14,000.  When I was a kid, not too, too long ago, we were taught that the average American showed a sad decline in intellect by using only about 25,000-30,000 words.  This was compared to the 40,000 words, or so, that the "average" American apparently could call upon immediately after WWII.  Anyway, for more details and a cool link, go here.