THE ETYMOLOGY NERD
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • Videos
  • MORE
    • Cartoons
    • Retail Reviews
    • Resources
    • About
    • Accomplishments

THE TITLE

2/25/2018

0 Comments

 
In the 1 year and 115 days I've been running this blog so far, I've used the word the​ 5,509 times, constituting about 6.0% of all my words. You'd think such a large sample size (over 91,000 words) would be an accurate representation of the English language, but, curiously, the is only used about 4.7% of the time in English. I suppose I have greater need for it, as I'm explaining abstract topics or something. Either way, that's pretty cool. However, despite all that usage, I've never given any glory to the word the. Come to think of it, I can't even define it. It seems I'm not the only one with that problem. A quick Google search for the definition of the word "the" yields several contrasting and obfuscating meanings, and, four results down, an article titled Why 'The' is So Difficult to Define. For the most part, it left me more confused than before, until it rather adeptly summed up the whole word as "a combination of the situations where it is appropriate". Oh, you want an etymology now? The word "the" basically sounded the same since Old English, and before that it was pronounced like sa or so. That's all. As a very simple word, it hasn't changed much.

[Edit 1: In the body of this blog post, I used the word the 17 times, constituting 7.9% of all words. This parenthetical obviously not included in analysis.]
[Edit 2: I was mistaken about the usage of the word the. I used Google Ngrams to approximate, and that led to incorrect results. Frequency is actually about 6.9%, closer to my value though a little above now]
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    AUTHOR

    Picture
    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic, a senior studying government and linguistics at Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy trivia, politics, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law. 
      If I don't cover it soon, I probably already did it
    Submit
    CONFUSED?
      

    Archives

    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016

    TAGS

    All
    Interview
    Satire

Picture

A lexophile's sanctum

CONTACT: etymologynerd@gmail.com
TWITTER • INSTAGRAM • YOUTUBE • REDDIT • LINKEDIN • RSS
Home • Blog • Infographics • Retail Reviews • Cartoons • Clarifications • Resources • Accomplishments
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • Videos
  • MORE
    • Cartoons
    • Retail Reviews
    • Resources
    • About
    • Accomplishments