A reader’s request sparked my curiosity. He wanted to know the top 1,000 most common words in the English language. I don’t know but I bet there’s a list out there somewhere and that one of you knows where it is. Please help.
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So I tried to google “1,000 most common words in the English language” and found http://tinyurl.com/36lgsqg. Was that so hard?
Oooh! Sarcasm. My favourite. (Seriously, though, I like the “Let me Google that for you” spoof.)
You may also be interested to find out just how few words are required to communicate effectively. “Globish” is a subset of English language and grammer that allows full communication using just 1500 words. More complex words are replaced by simpler descriptions (eg “kitten” becomes “baby cat”).
I first read about it a while ago in an interview which is reproduced here: http://www.jpn-globish.com/articles.php?lng=fr&pg=171 The concept originated here: http://www.mngogate.com/e02.htm
And there’s a whole website devoted to it here: http://www.globish.com/
Jamie, that’s a fascinating link. I’m going to check it out. Increasingly, I have to write content that gets translated into many different languages and the thinking behind Globish, if not the actual details, could be very helpful. I like the example of a ‘baby cat’, for example. Thanks for this suggestion.
Vaguely reminiscent of Orwell’s Newspeak http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html
Interesting. I suppose the dividing line is between simplifying language in search of wider understanding and manipulating it to make some things harder to say. The literary counter-example to Orwell’s Newspeak is Iain M. Banks’s Marain, the language of The Culture, which is designed to make people more reasonable.
Check out the “controlled languages” they started in IBM and some massive aerospace company back in the 70s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_natural_language
The aim was to make complex documentation usable by people all over the world with only a limited grasp of English. That way you’d prevent accidents, make it easier to update manuals, and make it easier to machine translate them.
I don’t know if they still follow this path. But I do know they’re trying to make us all speak like robots. Aaaaah!
Check out Zipf’s Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law which predicts the frequency of those words.
Andrew – that’s very cool. Thanks for that link. Cheers, Matthew
Agreed, what is wrong with google? It’s a tad annoying when people ask questions that they can easily google and do a little research themselves.
Wonderful comments. Much better than just Google -ing for it.
I agree, Einat. I learned a few things that I hadn’t been expecting and I think my reader who posed the original question got a better answer than he would have found from mere Googling. Matthew