Words without thoughts never to heaven go

My friend jmac sent me a link to an interesting site called Wordcount, which plots around 87,000 English words as a decay curve, going from the most popular word "the", to the least popular, "conquistador". Words are ranked by how often they are used within the British National Corpus®, a 100 million word representative sample of written and spoken word pieces.
I was tinkering with Wordcount yesterday and found it interesting to compare words. Perhaps you will enjoy. I certainly did. Below, the word's ranking appears to its right. The higher the ranking, the more it is used.

These are the words of truth, and these are the truths of words, and this is what I have learned:

We Anglophones are a bit more concerned about the ends of our lives than we are the beginnings.

Birth: 1964
Death: 454

We fear more than we hope once we become lingual.

Heaven: 3733
Hell: 1927

Despite what a trip to the DMV might tell you, we are more interested than not.

Curious: 3997
Bored: 5162

There are more of us that have not than have.

Rich: 1482
Poor: 648

Sex sells, because no one wants to get rid of love, which is 3.35 times more popular.

Love: 384
Sex: 1286

Despite our differences in color, we are more or less the same:

Black: 356
White: 363

Girls are better at numbers than are boys:

Girl: 616
Boy:735

We trust hope more than we do statistics:

Marriage: 1314
Divorce: 4193

We have a favorite Stooge:

Larry: 10466
Curly: 12078
Moe: 57050

We think with our brains more than our stomachs.

Food: 503
Thought: 152

Two thirds of us are followers:

Shepard: 6474
Sheep: 3148

Grabbing is more important than walking:

Hands: 504
Feet: 698

If you've made it this far, you're the latter, if not, you're the former.

Stupid: 2939
Clever: 3793

English speakers like dogs more than cats:

Dog: 1293
Cat: 2532

Once again, the triumph of hope over reality:

Polite: 6369
Rude: 7147

And the answer to life's most important question:

Boxers: 22178
Briefs: 23689
Commando: 13066

I will never borrow another man's pants again.

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Article Author: Jeremy Chrysler

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