Zipf’s law explains that the usage frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table, so the most frequently used word will occur approximately twice as often as the second most frequently used word, three times as often as the third, and so on. This means that, on average, just 135 words account for 50% of everything we say. Here’s Oxford’s top 7 most frequently used words in the English language:
1. the
2. be
3. to
4. of
5. and
6. a
7. in
Communication is at the heart of what makes us human. What do you make of the fact that “one” ranks at 35 but “two” at 84? And “I” ranks at 10 and “we” at 27?