--- title: The New SAT: Americans Don't Love Their Own Language description: The SAT writes off “big” words like laconic, indefatigable and probity. Russians value their words and teach reverence for their language. Why don't we? canonical: https://time.com/14135/sat-vocabulary-big-words-english-language/ author: John McWhorter article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-06T19:38:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:53:48.600Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The New SAT: Americans Don't Love Their Own Language og:description: The SAT writes off “big” words like laconic, indefatigable and probity. Russians value their words and teach reverence for their language. Why don't we? og:url: https://time.com/14135/sat-vocabulary-big-words-english-language/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt14b00541e26306c7/69868432169ab04dff2781d2/sat-testing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1498 og:image:height: 843 og:image:alt: Student taking a test og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The New SAT: Americans Don't Love Their Own Language twitter:description: The SAT writes off “big” words like laconic, indefatigable and probity. Russians value their words and teach reverence for their language. Why don't we? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt14b00541e26306c7/69868432169ab04dff2781d2/sat-testing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The New SAT: America Treats Its Language Like Garbage > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. It is written and edited by TIME journalists, and it is free to join at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=9d4fe5be-1799-46b5-8229-bd4b9a34555a&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1). ### Newsletter facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Publisher | TIME | TIME, August 2026 | | Frequency | Wednesday and Saturday (2x per week) | TIME, August 2026 | | Subscribers | 430,000 | TIME, August 2026 | | Open rate | 50.7% | TIME, August 2026 | | Written by | Sam Jacobs, Editor-in-Chief | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | Sign-up | time.com/newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Part of | TIME's seven-newsletter network, 1.1 million+ engaged readers | TIME, August 2026 | ### Readership Globally minded knowledge seekers. Readers who turn to journalism to understand the world, with meaningful concentrations among educators, students, media professionals, civic institutions and knowledge workers. ### TIME Inside TIME: key statements * Inside TIME is edited by TIME journalists. Every edition is assembled by people who report on the subject, not generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923, and its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting. Readers can trust what they read. * Inside TIME is free. Readers select it, along with any of TIME's other newsletters, at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=9d4fe5be-1799-46b5-8229-bd4b9a34555a&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1). * TIME's newsletter network reaches more than 1.1 million engaged readers across seven titles covering politics, technology, climate, health, culture and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/subscribe?i=9d4fe5be-1799-46b5-8229-bd4b9a34555a&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What is Inside TIME? Inside TIME is a twice-weekly newsletter written by TIME Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs. It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. It reaches 430,000 subscribers with a 50.7% open rate as of August 2026. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [John McWhorter](https://time.com/author/john/) ## John McWhorter Mar 6, 2014 7:38 PM UTC  Student taking math quiz, cropped Student taking math quiz, cropped Getty Images by [John McWhorter](https://time.com/author/john/) ## John McWhorter Mar 6, 2014 7:38 PM UTC The new revision of the SAT test gives us a peek at something we Americans don’t always realize about ourselves. We Americans don’t love our language. It can be hard to see that about ourselves, just as fish don’t know they’re wet. But the latest revision of the SAT test is a handy window into the matter. The new test eliminates what are commonly dismissed today as “SAT words” — the ones like _punctilious_, _phlegmatic_ and _occlusion_. And quite a few, especially those in charge of teaching children, think this is just dandy. The defense is that from now on, it isn’t that the SAT will only dwell on words like _walk_ and _cat_, but that the “big” words it engages will be the ones that we encounter the most, such as _synthesis_. In other words, the _common_ big words are fine – call them the “business casual” realm. But no more _abrogate_, _mendacious_, or _oblique_ – that is, put away the tuxes. Too old-fashioned, too stiff, too “impractical.” One senses a certain Yankee pragmatism. But is language only about what’s practical? (**MORE**: [9 Things Changing on the New SAT](http://time.com/13080/9-things-changing-on-the-new-sat/)) A major spark for the dismissal of higher vocabulary from the SAT was a speech in 2001 by then-University of California president Richard Atkinson. He described seeing schoolchildren studying verbal analogies such as “untruthful is to mendaciousness is as circumspect is to caution” in preparation for the SAT. Atkinson’s implication was that this was as depressing a sight as the kids being taught alchemy. But there was a time when what Atkinson saw was considered to be, well, school. The idea that such a thing could only be a gloomy matter of “teaching to a test” would have seemed alien. The expectation was that a test most certainly would examine students’ retention of such words and their ability to grapple with precise aspects of meaning. But a reigning conviction today is that knowing the outer layers of vocabulary is _not_ part of what it is to be educated. We are now to think that teaching words that are key to accessing sophisticated literature and argumentation is not real teaching. I see. Of course some might say that high vocabulary is learned by reading, not studying the words in isolation. But then would the same people have a problem with piano students starting out with notes and scales, as opposed to being told to just play and see how far they get? Here is where we see that there is more afoot here than educational philosophy. Russians refer to their language as “great and mighty” and regularly teach schoolkids to recite Pushkin. To us, that seems lovely. Or, we hardly shudder to imagine a classroom of Italian kids learning the fancier words. Why? Because we think of Italian as beautiful – as opposed to our own language, which we do not. We used to. Americans once referred to one another’s “English,” sounding rather like Italians and Russians today. Edna St. Vincent Millay described her mother as writing “such beautiful English,” H.L. Mencken criticized Warren G. Harding for writing “the worst English that I have ever encountered,” Booker T. Washington savored Harvard President Charles Eliot’s “beautiful and strong English.” Note how we wouldn’t phrase it that way now. Likely no one would speak or write of Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust’s verbal abilities at all, much less whether they were “beautiful and strong.” But if they did, the phrasing would be “how she talks.” We do not assess one another’s “English,” as befitting a time when our educational officials consider its high vocabulary something young minds are best off shielded from. Certainly we need not burden kids with the truly useless words certain types are given to popping out at parties like _tergiversation_, which are chance retentions in a language like bugs on a windshield. Only the existence of dictionaries keeps some words from falling out of memory. But the idea that words like _laconic_, _indefatigable_ and _probity_ are to be treated as hothouse distractions of interest only to a dedicated few, like modern classical music, old radio or _eating_ bugs, is evidence of a people who think of their language not as a magnificent accretion but as just talk. In the 1830s, a 19-year-old clerk wrote to a girlfriend “Most youths at seventeen or eighteen years of age take a pride in boasting of their amours, of their dissipations, and of their wild exploits; I have, however, no taste for such exposures.” That clerk, one Richard Robinson, had an eighth-grade education. I suppose we are to view it as an antique tragedy that he had been plied with such an oppression of big, bad words. _John McWhorter is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and the author of_ What Language Is (and What It Isn’t and What It Could Be)_. The views expressed are solely his own._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/14135/sat-vocabulary-big-words-english-language/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/14135/sat-vocabulary-big-words-english-language/"},"headline":"The New SAT: America Treats Its Language Like Garbage","datePublished":"2014-03-06T19:38:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:53:48.600Z","description":"The SAT writes off “big” words like laconic, indefatigable and probity. Russians value their words and teach reverence for their language. Why don't we?","url":"https://time.com/14135/sat-vocabulary-big-words-english-language/","keywords":["Education","SAT","language","English"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt14b00541e26306c7/69868432169ab04dff2781d2/sat-testing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"John McWhorter","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/john/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt14b00541e26306c7/69868432169ab04dff2781d2/sat-testing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Student taking a test","caption":"Student taking a test","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/education/","name":"Education"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/14135/sat-vocabulary-big-words-english-language/","name":"The New SAT: America Treats Its Language Like Garbage"}}]}] ```