Common Words and Meanings

First published: 01st March 2011

A friend pointed out to me a paragraph in an English textbook that said the fifty commonest English words account for 45% of the words in English text. From there, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that just teaching these fifty common words gets students almost halfway to mastery of the language. Sadly, this is naïve.

First, what are these fifty common words? It is easy to find lists, such as:

The lists don't agree entirely, even on the first 5 words, let alone 50.

These lists are very useful for cryptanalysis of English codes (less so for ciphers), but not so useful for learning or understanding the language. Take, for example, a well-known quote from Shakespeare, say:

"To be, or not to be"

And take out all the words not on the top 50 list, we have:

"To be, or not to be"

OK, bad example, try:

"The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown."

With only the top 50 words we have:

"The ? of ? is not ?. It ? as the ? ? from ? ? the ? ?. It is ? ?: It ? him that ? ? and him that ?. ? ? in the ?; it ? the ? ? ? than his ?."

Not so understandable. Now try it leaving out the top 50 words instead:

"? quality ? mercy ? ? strained. ? droppeth ? ? gentle rain ? heaven upon ? place beneath. ? ? twice blest: ? blesseth ? ? gives ? ? ? takes. Tis mightiest ? ? mightiest; ? becomes ? throned monarch better ? ? crown."

Apart from the rather important "not" in the first sentence, you can almost get the meaning of the quote. This example shows us that the information in a piece of text is not conveyed equally by all the words, and it is mostly (not always, remember that important "not") the less common words that hold the keys to understanding. This will be familiar to any specialist who has listened to a conversation about their speciality in a language they do not understand - they can probably pick up the topic, and perhaps some of the details, by recognising names and significant technical terms that are untranslated, or only slightly modified in the unknown language.

What does this mean for learning a language? Well, there's no magic list of fifty, or twenty, or two hundred words that make an easy gateway to fluency.