By The Way...

This is pretty darn nifty: A site that ranks the popularity of the top 86,800 words in the English language from number one ("the," which is so not surprising) to number 86,800 ("conquistador," which I for one would think to be more popular than "recrossed," which comes in at 86,799. Nouns should always trump verbs). Among the things I learned today: "John" is the 266th most popular word in the English language -- not bad for a proper noun -- and the word that's right in the middle -- number 43400, is "lopped," which again I would expect to be used more. Also, for pet lovers: "dog" is number 1279, but "cat" a mere 2532. Scandalously, neither "cromulent" nor "embiggens" shows up at all. You can see how you can get sucked into this.

What's really weird about this? This site has an Italian URL suffix (".it").

How popular is your name, in the grand scheme of English words (presuming, which one probably shouldn't, that it's an "English" name at all)?

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• #10 Comment from st0rmwhispers 
  10/1/04 12:35 AM | Permalink

  I think the reason dog is a more popular word than cat is because most cat owners (myself included) refer to the creatures as "your highness and most magnificent feline".  Failure to do so could render your leg into a scratching post or your keyboard into a hairball tray.  They are not amused by common terms such as "cat".
• #9 Comment from shayreen1 
  10/1/04 12:10 AM | Permalink

  SHAY WAS 82,256
• #8 Comment from lilrazcal79 
  9/30/04 9:52 PM | Permalink

  Dawn 3712
• #7 Comment from nzforme 
  9/30/04 8:06 PM | Permalink

  It's a conspiracy!
  
  I looked up "america."  Do you know the three words immediately following it on the list?  "ensure oil opportunity."  Coincidence?
• #6 Comment from firestormkids04 
  9/30/04 5:42 PM | Permalink

  Penny 4414
  
  That was a lot of fun, John.