Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Is this only interesting to me?

Only a small percentage (less than 3%) of the words we use today were used in Old English times (~500 AD to 1066 AD) but that small percentage of words are our most commonly used words. For example, of the 100 most commonly used words, ~95 of them are Old English. Below I've listed the top ten most used words in English,

1-the
2-of
3-and
4-a
5-to
6-in
7-is
8-you
9-that
10-it

I find it interesting that "you" is number 8, while "I" comes in 20th place ("my" at 81). "He" comes in 11th ("his" at 18th) and "she" doesn't get used till number 46 ("her" #62).

One more interesting fact, quoted from "The Adventure of English," by Melvyn Bragg

"We shall fight on the beaches," said Churchill in 1940, "we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." Only "surrender" is not Old English. That, in itself might be significant."

1 comment:

not-so-quiet mom said...

You are such a nerd!

Notice that sentence contains "you," but not "I."

Also, how many of those words do not come from Old English?

I'm looking forward to your next post about the Great Vowel Shift ; )