How the Essential Vocabulary for English Learners Shifted from 1953 to 2023

Overview of the Lists

The 1953 General Service List (GSL) contained 2,284 words and covered roughly 84% of general English usage. The 2023 New General Service List (NGSL) expanded to 2,809 words and covers about 90% of usage. Between the two lists, 628 words were removed, 1,153 were added, and 1,656 remained unchanged.

What Changed: Removed vs Added Words

Many removed words were concrete, hands‑on items: telegraph, tobacco, flour, wheat, goat, donkey, leaf, fork, soap, umbrella, and apple. Added words leaned toward abstract or institutional concepts: mortgage, corporation, appropriate, analysis, fairly, despite, legislation, perspective, involvement, improvement, assumption, evaluation. Cook stayed, but boil, bake, and fry dropped. Bread remained while its ingredients fell out.

Shift from Concrete to Abstract Vocabulary

Using concreteness ratings (1–5), highly concrete words fell from 21% of the list in 1953 to 14% in 2023. Concrete words activate both verbal and sensory brain pathways, making them easier to recall; abstract words rely on verbal processing alone. The data show a clear move away from words you can weigh, point to, or hold toward words that shape life without occupying physical space.

Part‑of‑Speech Trends (Adverbs Rise)

The 2023 list contains more words overall, and adverbs increased markedly. Added adverbs include absolutely, actually, approximately, badly, barely, basically, carefully, certainly, clearly, completely, constantly, currently, deeply, definitely, differently, dramatically, easily, effectively, entirely, equally, eventually, exactly, extremely, fairly, faithfully, finally, firmly, firstly, forever, frequently, fully, furthermore, generally, gently, gradually, greatly, heavily, hence, highly, hopefully, immediately, increasingly, initially, largely, literally, mainly, merely, monthly, mostly, naturally, nearby, nearly, necessarily, nevertheless, newly, normally, obviously, occasionally, originally, overseas, particularly, partly, perfectly, personally, possibly, potentially, precisely, presumably, primarily, probably, properly, quickly, quietly, rapidly, rarely, really, reasonably, recently, regardless, regularly, relatively, respectively, roughly, secondly, seriously, significantly, similarly, simply, slightly, slowly, somewhat, specifically, strongly, subsequently, successfully, suddenly, surely, surprisingly, totally, truly, twice, typically, ultimately, unfortunately, usually, virtually, widely. These adverbs mainly specify degree, frequency, certainty, and extent, indicating a need for more precise qualification of precision in statements.

Interpretation: What the Change Suggests About Society

The vocabulary shift mirrors broader societal changes: by 1957 white‑collar workers outnumbered blue‑collar workers in the US, and by 2000 fewer than one in four workers performed manual labor. The word lists, built from the language of their eras, tracked a life that moved further from direct making—less tied to tools, animals, food, and the body; more tied to national or global institutions, categories, systems, and ideas. The new vocabulary reflects a world that is more regulated, more connected, and more systemic, requiring language that is expansive, abstract, and precise.

Comments and Community Insights

“The “Social‑Communicative” level barely changed in size. But nearly a quarter of the words in the 1953 list are gone, and 39% of the 2023 words are new. Humble, loyalty, fellowship, generous, polite, and companionship gave way to community, identity, organization, ethnic, gender, and narrative. ...It offers fewer words for the people directly around you, but more for belonging at a distance. I would blame inequality on this one. In a more unequal world tribalization is a survival strategy and language follows.” — @Frieren

“The author mentions various categories grew or shrank, but always in percentages. Since the list also grew from 2300 to 2800 words that feels like it might distort things a bit: in absolute word count, a category that shrank by 1% lost fewer words than a category that grew by 1% would have gained, no? Having said that, the categories that shrank all did so by a big enough percentage to also shrink in absolute number of words, so at least that isn't a problem.” — @vanderZwan

“It’s as if the world now requires you to be more precise about everything. ... We have trended from subjective language to objective language. Why? Computing. Software is written with objective language. Everything is clearly unambiguously defined.” — @thomastjeffery

“I tried to organize vocab by difficulty level for an English language‑learning app once. It shocked me how there is absolutely no 'right' answer. If you are teaching English for travel, then you're prioritizing a lot of stuff around bathrooms, transportation, menu items, etc. If it's for understanding TV, it's a lot of words like 'murder', etc. Depending on which TV shows you want to understand. If it's for reading the newspaper, you don't ever need to know 'bathroom', but you sure do need to know words like 'congressman'. While if you are living somewhere, it's really important to know a lot of basic supermarket items that you wouldn't prioritize for other usages.” — @crazygringo

Limitations and Notes

Both lists rank words by frequency and then apply learner‑focused curation. The 1953 list especially reflects period pedagogy, favoring general‑purpose vocabulary over emotional or highly specific words. The coverage figures (84% for GSL, ~90% for NGSL) come from the original authors and follow‑up studies; the analysis did not rerun those corpus calculations. The word‑form treatment differs: the NGSL uses lemmas while the GSL sometimes lists inflected forms separately, which affects raw counts but not the overall trends described.”}