RUMINATING ON LANGUAGE AND WORD FREQUENCY
Some time ago I came across this in Lydia Davis’s Essays Two:
I read recently that in English, a mere 43 words account for half of all words in common use, and that just nine (and, be, have, it, of, the, to, will, you ) account for a quarter in almost any sample of written English (my source is a very entertaining exploration of the English language, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, by Bill Bryson).
A LOT GOES ON INSIDE A FISH
Peter Godfrey-Smith:
Fish will count objects in experimental tasks. They use counting as a last resort, apparently, using other clues if they can, but the same is true of dolphins and people.
ON KEEPING A NOTEBOOK
I’m currently reading Roland Allen’s The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper. I’ll have more to say about the book in my what I’m reading section after I finish reading it, but he has me thinking about how and why I take notes on my reading and also – in my journal – on my life.
Read moreTHE SHORTCOMINGS OF THE UNITED STATES
W.E.B. Dubois, writing in 1958:
There was a day when the world rightly called Americans honest even if crude; earning their living by hard work; telling the truth no matter whom it hurt; and going to war only in what they believed a just cause after nothing else seemed possible.
ON THE ABOLITION OF ALL POLITICAL PARTIES
In 1943, the French philosopher and activist Simone Weil was living in London. She was close to death – she had contracted tuberculosis, and her condition was made even worse because she insisted that she would eat only what her French colleagues were allowed to eat in their occupied country.
Read moreREMEMBERING GERMANY'S PAST; REFLECTING ON THE PRESENT
It’s a standard move in the last 10 days – has it really been only ten days?
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