Green Comet

Querycount

From the website: “Each time someone searches a word on Wordcount, Querycount takes note. Every few hours, Querycount refreshes itself, rearranging its word rankings based on the number of times each word has been queried by Wordcount.” So, while Wordcount is an archive of English usage at one point late in the twentieth century, a static database, Querycount is a current picture, a dynamic, changing record of human curiosity about language.

Let’s try it out. Remember, “Elgin” ranked 28,411 in wordcount. In Querycount it comes in at 33,820, preceded by “plaice” and followed by “foiled.” A plaice is a large flatfish. “Frances” has moved up from its Wordcount spot at 9,860 to a Querycount position of 4,691. It’s preceded by “consumption” and followed by “irony.” Remember, these results are changing all the time as people query the Wordcount archive, so if you go to the website and try it yourself, don’t be surprised if you get different results. Now for this blog. “green,” previously 671 in Wordcount, is 204 now in Querycount. It’s now preceded by “please” and followed by “Jennifer.” “Comet” was 16,896 and jumps up to 6,911. It’s preceded by “fasten” and followed by “antichrist.”

The last word in Wordcount is “conquistador,” rank 86,800. In Querycount it is the 64th entry. A lot of people must be looking to see what the last word is. The second- to fifth-last words were “recrossed,” “workless,” “Carniola” and “tangency,” which now rank 3,791, 1,091, 4,832 and 3,111 respectively.

The last five words in the Querycount archive are, beginning at the end, “fart,” “crap,” “help,” “house” and “cool.” Naturally, if a word gets queried it is very likely to change its position, especially if it is near the end to begin with. For instance, querying “fart” moved it from last to 69th.

The original top ten words, such as “the” and “of,” etc, have largely been replaced by other words that people seem to find more interesting. With the exception of “the” and “a,” the top positions are held by much more colorful words, which won’t be quoted here.

rjb

Wordcount Home Page

The written part of the BNC comprises 90% of the corpus. Among many other forms of text it includes extracts from newspapers, journals and periodicals for all ages, text books, fiction, and essays written at schools and universities. The oral 10% comes from radio shows and phone-ins, formal meetings and informal conversations recorded by volunteers, etc.

Wordcount presently includes the 86,800 words that are used at least twice in the BNC. In the future, the site claims that wordcount will be modified to sample any chosen text or website, and eventually the whole Internet. I doubt that because the site seems to be stuck in time.

But let’s try it out anyway. First, let’s check whether Green Comet’s leading man is on the list. He is. “Elgin” comes in at word number 28,411. It is preceded by “lichens” and followed by “joystick.” I don’t think we can read anything into that. How about Elgin’s beloved? “Frances” appears at position 9,860. It is preceded by “excuses” and followed by “dusk.” As for this blog, “green” is number 671 and “comet” follows at a distant 16,896. “Green” is preceded by “planning” and followed by “students,” while “comet” is between “stafford” and “pol.”

The last word in the Wordcount archive, coming in as the 86,800th most used word, is “conquistador.” It’s preceded by “recrossed,” “workless,” “Carniola” and “tangency.” Carniola is a mountainous region in southwestern Slovenia. For the most used words we’ll do ten of them because they’re smaller, starting with number ten, “was.” Number nine is “is.” Eight is “it.” Seven, “that.” Six, “in.” Five, “a.” Four, “to.” Three, “and.” Two, “of.” And the number one word in the archive, the most used word in British English, is “the.”

Strangely, the word “wordcount” is not in the Wordcount archive.

rjb