Top 100 words in English

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WidreMann

Top 100 words in English

#1 Postby WidreMann » Wed Jul 16, 2003 5:35 pm

6.18% the
4.23% is, was, be, are, 's (= is), were, been, being, 're, 'm, am
2.94% of
2.68% and
2.46% a, an
1.80% in, inside (preposition)
1.62% to (infinitive verb marker)
1.37% have, has, have, 've, 's (= has), had, having, 'd (= had)
1.27% he, him, his
1.25% it, its
1.17% I, me, my
0.91% to (preposition)
0.86% they, them, their
0.86% not, n't, no (interjection)
0.83% for
0.83% you, your
0.70% she, her
0.65% with
0.64% on
0.62% that (conjunction)
0.58% this, these
0.57% that (demonstrative), those
0.55% do, did, does, done, doing
0.51% we, us, our
0.50% by
0.47% at
0.45% but (conjunction)
0.44% 's (possessive)
0.41% from
0.40% as (many parts of speech)
0.37% which
0.37% or
0.31% will, 'll
0.28% said, say, says, saying
0.25% would
0.25% what
0.23% there (existential, in "there is ..." phrases)
0.23% if
0.23% can
0.22% all
0.22% who, whose
0.21% so (adverb / conjunction)
0.20% go, went, gone, goes
0.20% more
0.19% other, another
0.19% one (numeral)
0.18% see, saw, seen, seeing
0.18% know, knew, known, knows, knowing


These 100 words make up 43% of all words in terms of usage.
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ColdFront77

#2 Postby ColdFront77 » Wed Jul 16, 2003 5:53 pm

Interesting information about our English language, WidreMann... thank you for posting it.
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#3 Postby wx247 » Wed Jul 16, 2003 7:21 pm

Interesting... Thanks for posting it.
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#4 Postby Colin » Wed Jul 16, 2003 8:53 pm

Thanks for the info! ;)
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JetMaxx

#5 Postby JetMaxx » Thu Jul 17, 2003 12:29 am

I just can't believe the word "sex" didn't make the top 100. It's all I seem to hear on television nowadays (why I rarely watch :D :D
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#6 Postby coriolis » Thu Jul 17, 2003 6:42 am

....or certain 4 letter words. Of course they wouldn't make it into a scholarly work.
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#7 Postby coriolis » Thu Jul 17, 2003 6:44 am

Widremann, what document(s) were used for this word study?
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#8 Postby JCT777 » Thu Jul 17, 2003 8:12 am

Great list, WidreMann! Thanks for posting it. 8-)
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#9 Postby raine » Thu Jul 17, 2003 10:51 am

Great post widremann! I find things like this fascinating, makes me stop and ponder...can't get enough of that :D

Thanks for sharing my friend, have a great day!

Blessings, Raine
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WidreMann

#10 Postby WidreMann » Thu Jul 17, 2003 12:30 pm

You'll notice that most of these words have a purely grammatical function, or are hybrids (such as "do" and "be", which are used mostly as auxillaries, but also have content meanings).

The corpus used to come up with these numbers was a collection written works, speeches and conversations. Of course there is no good way to come up with an exact count of English words or their frequency in the language, it's the best that can be done.

Here's the source: http://www.invisiblelighthouse.com/langlab/bncwords.html
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