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This may have been discussed in some form or other before I found my way to this forum, but I came across this item in today's local paper and thought it might be of interest:
"You've got about 600,000 English words to work with. But only 43 of them make up half of everything you say. Only nine go into a quarter of what you say. These nine are:
and, be, have, it, of, the, to, will, you. So contends that language expert Robert Chapman."
I have no information regarding how he arrived at these figures, but it seems to me that a statistical study of "what people say" would be a very difficult undertaking and would require a number of clearly stated parameters.
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And is it purely 'saying' - verbal - or also writing? I couldn't believe that if it related also to writing, since it is usually significantly more lexically dense (ratio of content words to structural words). This, of course, is one of the distinguishing differences between the two (speaking and writing), and one big thing that children need to learn when figuring out how to 'write' - don't write as you speak! Hmm, sorry, did I go off topic?? 
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One use I can see for such studies would be to help persons studying foreign languages. I used to be able to read German and French, but didn't have the words needed for even simple conversation. I suppose the same thing would be true of foreigners learning English.
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help persons studying foreign languages -
On closer inspection, I have some doubts about the usefulness of learning words according to their statistical frequency. The most frequent words quoted above are merely the "glue" that holds together what you really want to say. Urgent communication - disregarding grammar - can often do without them.
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The 600,000 figure is way too low. The latest impossibly, impossible count I read about had the figure 200,000 times higher--and that article was from several years ago. We have discussed here the impossibility of determining an accurate count of English vocabulary, especially so many very fine words never find their way into a dictionary, wonderful words such as my little pet 'google.' But, for those who attempt to count professionally however they go about it, the count was over 800,000 several years back. I, for one, think it would be fascinating to have a way of determining a person's personal vocabulary--including proper nouns. Seems one should get credit for all the persons, places, book titles, etc., one is familiar with. 
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200,000 times (emphasis added)now you're getting into googol range!
formerly known as etaoin...
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>The latest impossibly, impossible count I read about had the figure 200,000 times higher--and that article was from several years ago.
Say What?!120,000,000,000 words?
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googol range
Lessee, 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000/120,
000,000,000=83,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,
333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333.
That's a couple orders of magnitude of difference. Not exactly googol range.
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I actually think that learning the 'glue' (structural language) is a very important part of language to learn, and know, especially in a foreign language... hard to make sense if you can't explain who is doing what to whom in your sentence, and I think it would enable you to ask questions to get the rest of the needed, content, language
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googol range
Lessee, 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000/120,
000,000,000=83,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,
333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333.
That's a couple orders of magnitude of difference. Not exactly googol range.
augh! my nit's been picked! I claim hyperbolic extension.
(besides, who could pass up the google/googol bit? not I, said the nit, licentiously.)
formerly known as etaoin...
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