THINK WHAT WE MEAN?

Found this in an article by David Orr, in Utne Reader (Aug. 2000). He writes that, "in the past 50 years, by one reckoning, the working vocabulary of the average 14-year-old has declined from 25,000 words to 10,000. This is a decline not merely in words, but also in the capacity to think. We are losing the capacity to say what we mean, and ultimately to think about what we mean, about the things that matter most."