{"id":51976,"date":"2013-05-08T09:30:01","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T13:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=51976"},"modified":"2013-05-08T08:39:01","modified_gmt":"2013-05-08T12:39:01","slug":"fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency-300x202.jpg\" alt=\"wordfrequency\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-51977\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency-300x202.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<li>See <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/ngrams\/\" target=\"_blank\">how many times<\/a> a word or phrase is used in a book! Hours of \u2026 okay, maybe not <em>fun<\/em>, but hours.<\/li>\n<li>New research suggests that there exists a family of\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national\/health-science\/linguists-identify-15000-year-old-ultraconserved-words\/2013\/05\/06\/a02e3a14-b427-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html\" target=\"_blank\">ultraconserved words<\/a>&#8221;&mdash;including <em>ashes<\/em>, <em>man<\/em>, <em>worm<\/em>, and <em>not<\/em>&mdash;that have survived, virtually unchanged, for fifteen thousand years.<\/li>\n<li>Amanda Knox <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/05\/12\/books\/review\/amanda-knox-by-the-book.html?smid=tw-share\" target=\"_blank\">tells the <em>Times<\/em><\/a> what she reads. Among others: Marilynne Robinson, Vladimir Nabokov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jonathan Safran Foer, and David Foster Wallace.<\/li>\n<li>The Harper Lee copyright fracas inspires <a href=\"http:\/\/mentalfloss.com\/article\/50462\/one-books-8-literary-lawsuits\" target=\"_blank\">a list of literary lawsuits<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI\u2019ve been getting death threats.\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/speakeasy\/2013\/05\/07\/charlaine-harris-vampire-series-slayer\/\" target=\"_blank\">Charlaine Harris<\/a> on the end of Sookie Stackhouse. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>See how many times a word or phrase is used in a book! Hours of \u2026 okay, maybe not fun, but hours. New research suggests that there exists a family of\u00a0\u201cultraconserved words&#8221;&mdash;including ashes, man, worm, and not&mdash;that have survived, virtually unchanged, for fifteen thousand years. Amanda Knox tells the Times what she reads. Among others: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2512],"tags":[10831,10832,154,422,5821,8426,1277,967],"class_list":["post-51976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-shelf","tag-amanda-knox","tag-charlaine-harris","tag-david-foster-wallace","tag-fyodor-dostoyevsky","tag-harper-lee","tag-jonathan-safran-foer","tag-linguistics","tag-vladimir-nabokov"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"May 8, 2013 \u2013 See how many times a word or phrase is used in a book! Hours of \u2026 okay, maybe not fun, but hours. New research suggests that there exists a family\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May 8, 2013 \u2013 See how many times a word or phrase is used in a book! Hours of \u2026 okay, maybe not fun, but hours. New research suggests that there exists a family\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-08T13:30:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"405\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-08T13:30:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/\"},\"wordCount\":105,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency-300x202.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Amanda Knox\",\"Charlaine Harris\",\"David Foster Wallace\",\"Fyodor Dostoyevsky\",\"Harper Lee\",\"Jonathan Safran Foer\",\"linguistics\",\"Vladimir Nabokov\"],\"articleSection\":[\"On the Shelf\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/\",\"name\":\"Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News by Sadie Stein\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency-300x202.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-08T13:30:01+00:00\",\"description\":\"May 8, 2013 \u2013 See how many times a word or phrase is used in a book! Hours of \u2026 okay, maybe not fun, but hours. New research suggests that there exists a family\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency.jpg\",\"width\":600,\"height\":405},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\",\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sadie Stein\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News by Sadie Stein","description":"May 8, 2013 \u2013 See how many times a word or phrase is used in a book! Hours of \u2026 okay, maybe not fun, but hours. New research suggests that there exists a family","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News by Sadie Stein","og_description":"May 8, 2013 \u2013 See how many times a word or phrase is used in a book! Hours of \u2026 okay, maybe not fun, but hours. New research suggests that there exists a family","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2013-05-08T13:30:01+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":405,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Sadie Stein","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sadie Stein"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/"},"author":{"name":"Sadie Stein","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9"},"headline":"Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News","datePublished":"2013-05-08T13:30:01+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/"},"wordCount":105,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency-300x202.jpg","keywords":["Amanda Knox","Charlaine Harris","David Foster Wallace","Fyodor Dostoyevsky","Harper Lee","Jonathan Safran Foer","linguistics","Vladimir Nabokov"],"articleSection":["On the Shelf"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/","name":"Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News by Sadie Stein","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency-300x202.jpg","datePublished":"2013-05-08T13:30:01+00:00","description":"May 8, 2013 \u2013 See how many times a word or phrase is used in a book! Hours of \u2026 okay, maybe not fun, but hours. New research suggests that there exists a family","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/wordfrequency.jpg","width":600,"height":405},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/fun-with-word-frequency-and-other-news\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fun with Word Frequency, and Other News"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9","name":"Sadie Stein","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sadie Stein"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51976"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51991,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51976\/revisions\/51991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}