what is the most common?

[cacian]

Letter = S?
Vowel= E
word= The? oR A/AN?
sentence= I Thank you?
tense= Present Continous?
number= 9?

used in the English language?
Are these more or less correct do you think?
Please feel free to add or change.

[Maximilianus]

While I was once doing a course on statistics I read somewhere that 'e' is the most frequent vowel in English.

[cacian]

While I was once doing a course on statistics I read somewhere that 'e' is the most frequent vowel in English.

Hey thank Maximilianus that is very much appreciated.:p

[Charles Darnay]

Do you need hard facts or opinions....because I cannot offer the former but can give the latter.

1) Letter: I'm assuming you mean consonant to contrast the next category of vowel? - s
2) Vowel - e
3) word - and
4) sentence - Hey, how's it going?
5) tense - past (we always speak in past tense)
and of course that goes without saying
6) number? - hmmm....1

[Charles Darnay]

Letter = S?
Vowel= E
word= The? oR A/AN?
sentence= Thank you?
tense= Present Continous?
number= 9?

used in the English language?
Are these more or less correct do you think?
Please feel free to add or change.

I'm interested to know why you chose 9

[Calidore]

My understanding is that "t" is the most common consonant, followed by "n", then "s". Pulp sci-fi/mystery author Fredric Brown once used the 12 most common letters as a short story title: "Etaoin Shrdlu."

For word: http://www.duboislc.org/EducationWatch/First100Words.html

Most common sentence is probably probation and/or a fine.


I'm interested to know why you chose 9

Pretty much all prices posted anywhere end in *.99, except those that end in *.95. Then there's the higher prices ending in *9.99, *99.99, etc. I could see 9 being the most common digit.

[jajdude]

vowel/letter "e" and word "the" , consonant "t"

guess: number one and "past tense"

[jajdude]

A little search answers some of the questions anyway.

Here's a quiz for most common words: http://www.sporcle.com/games/g/common_english_words

And for letters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency

[cacian]

I'm interested to know why you chose 9

Hi Charles
I chose 9 because of the price tags 9.99.
This is the only number repeated three times at any given time.
No other number is repeated in the same way I don't think hence my assumption.

What made you chose 1?

[jajdude]

I would think "one" because we say and write it often, seems like more than any other number perhaps, but it didn't occur to me to think of common as in seeing the numeral everywhere.

I would also guess past (simple) tense because most stories told or written and a lot of things we talk about seem to use it more so than other tense.

[YesNo]

Most common sentence is probably probation and/or a fine.


:iagree:

For the most common digit, I'd pick 0.

[cacian]

:iagree:

For the most common digit, I'd pick 0.

why 0?

[Maximilianus]

I dug out this online game I had almost forgotten, which was once passed on to me by a fellow language enthusiast: http://www.sporcle.com/games/g/common_english_words

This link was already posted by jajdude a few posts above, but I think it's relevant to mention a few details about the game. It's said to be based on an Oxford English Dictionary research; a source I haven't been able to find (I haven't looked it up much anyway), though it looks reliable to my humble opinion. There's 12 minutes to guess and type the words you think to be the commonest. Every time you score, the word will appear in the below grid at a position corresponding to its supposed frequency of usage. Once the 12 minutes are over the system fills up in a different color the rest of words you couldn't guess. There are other interesting word-related quizzes too, like these ones:


Can you name the most common two-letter English words? (http://www.sporcle.com/games/boyochels/twoletterwords)

Can you name the 159 most commonly used words in feature-length 20th century English-language movies? (http://www.sporcle.com/games/rockgolf/Movies_with_Brad_Words)

All games seem to provide statistical info, like word rank, count of occurrences, and so on. Let's hope their data to be reliable! http://smiles.kolobok.us/personal/hi.gif

[Maximilianus]

Oh, and what's more important, you can post your scores on Facebook and humiliate your friends with unearthly language skills :p

[cacian]

Oh, and what's more important, you can post your scores on Facebook and humiliate your friends with unearthly language skills :p

Hey thanks Maximillianus for the links.
Good idea about scores and Facebook!

[Maximilianus]

Welcome! :)