Are you a natural worrier? To find out, simply take the following vocabulary test. Please define: (a) abrade, (b) abrogate, (c) ret, (d) pintle and (e) quaternary. The answers are at the bottom of the page
These are some of the rarer words in English, turning up – on average – just once in every 50m words of speech. So if you get even just one or two right, your vocabulary is well above average. If you got them all right, it is absolutely stellar. Now for the bad news…
Vocabulary size is a measure of what psychologists call your verbal intelligence. But psychologist Alexander Penney’s study, of more than 100 Canadian students, found links between verbal intelligence and rumination – as you’ll know if you did well on the vocabulary test – is the tendency to chew over upsetting events continually, long after they have happened.
These findings suggest that the higher your vocabulary (the more words you can define), the more likely that you will be a worrier and the fewer words, the less likely. But why? The authors of the study suggest that people with high verbal intelligence are better able to bring to mind the details of past events, and think them through in detail; a blessing for happy events, but a curse for unhappy ones.
Answers: (a) to wear away, (b) to revoke or repeal, eg a law, (c) to soak flax or hemp in water, (d) the pin of a hinge or rudder, (e) fourth.
A fully referenced version of this article is available at benambridge.com. Order Psy-Q by Ben Ambridge (Profile Books, £8.99) for £6.99 at bookshop.theguardian.com
