Try to explain something while only using the thousand most common words in English. It’s harder than you might think. This comic from xkcd points out the difficulty in describing a space ship called the Up Goer Five, and an Up-Goer Five Text Editor points out what words don’t fit. The challenge becomes even more fun if you’re trying to describe complex subjects like science or engineering. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Thousand Most Common Words”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
It’s hard enough to describe a complex subject, but imagine trying to do it with only the thousand most common words in English. It’s really hard. And I’ve been playing with that idea, Grant, and I know you have too. It’s a useful way of shaking things up.
And our inspiration for that was the thing called Upgoer 5. You remember this, Grant. The cartoon by, what, XKCD? It’s a drawing of a Saturn V rocket, the one that took Apollo astronauts to the moon, but it’s labeled using only the thousand most common words in English. So, for example, thousand and common aren’t among the most common words in English. So the cartoon says it’s about the 10 hundred words people use the most often. And the whole diagram of the rocket has things like instead of the space capsule, it’s called the people box. And the oxygen tanks are called breathing type air, which are different from the helium tanks, which are the funny voice air. And that’s prompted a lot of people to start playing with this idea.
In fact, there’s even an online Upgoer 5 text editor where you can try to write things. Oh, interesting, yeah. And it’ll flag any words that aren’t in the thousand most common English words. It’s kind of a funny exercise if you get stuck as a writer. I could have used something like that when I was a dictionary editor. You know, a lot of learners’ dictionaries have this reduced vocabulary.
Of course. And it’s not about the most common words when you’re making a dictionary. It’s the ones that they most need to know. And those two groups don’t necessarily overlap. Yeah. Because common words sometimes are common for a reason that doesn’t have anything to do with utility. Yeah.
So what you would do that, you’re writing a book for people who don’t know English well, you have to explain things like nuclear power. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Using reduced vocabulary. And if you use a word that’s not in your master list, then you have to define that word in the definition using the words that are in the master list. Yeah, yeah. It is a good brain exercise, but it’s incredibly difficult to do day in, day out for thousands of entries in a dictionary.
I’m sure it is. I mean, people for fun have been, like scientists, have been going there and describing the work they do. And it’s really difficult to describe those things that way. You know, there’s a whole Wikipedia written in simple English.
For real? Yeah. It’s not ordinary English. It’s written for people who may not have English as their first language or for people who are young enough not to understand the full vocabulary of an adult. Oh, no kidding. What is it called? Mini Wikipedia? Simple English, I believe. Simple English Wikipedia. And, you know, the Voice of America does broadcasts in simplified English as well. And they talk slowly like this for people who are learning English and maybe, you know, they need a little extra time to comprehend the words. It’s just all these different ways to get into the language using simplification.
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts about words, big and small. Call us, 877-929-9673, or send your questions and email to words@waywordradio.org.
