Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-07-29
Hard Working Words
BY Frederic ]. Haskin.

one is born To the day OF ms hst $40"
ride, what word Of nil thO4e in the die
tionary, do you suppose, he uscs the great
est number Of timcs1 Would you IKE
to know the word that IL the second
fayorite, the one that is cnuncis,cd third
most frequently, and the one that oc-
cupies fourth place among verbal toois'
SAVE THESE WAR FIGURES.
At the close Of the war Colonel Ayres
compiled for the War Department sta
tistical summary which showed at a
glance what had happened during those
months Of conflict. His summary showed,
for instance, that the total battle deaths
in the recent war were greater than the
deaths in all wars for a hundred years be-
fore; that Russia suffered most, despite
her withdrawal; that Germany lost thirty
two times as many men as the United
States; France 28 times as many, and
Great Britain Is times az many. In TINS
war 50 men in 900 we're killed m battle
in year, while in the Civil War 30 IN
600 were 80 killed, and in the Mexican
War Is in each 600. Thus the death rate
in battle during the World War was high
est Of all wars.
Colonel Ayres further reported that
during the Mexican War 40 m each ] 900
men died Of disease, and that So IN each
/ 900 men were lost from the same cause
during the Civil War. But during the
World War the loss from disease was only
| o in each / 900 men, so that the late con
hct scored a great success through max
ing science Of cleanliness.
Now the man who compiled these vital
figures has been counting the words peo-
pie use The ten next most used words are
have. not, with, be, your, at, VIC, on, he,
by. They are all little fellows, who, like
Peter Pan, never grow up.
Colonel Ayres, in his study u educa-
tional problems, developed the theory that
the words in the spelling books should bc
those which people Use IN that most
common form Of writing which appears IN
the letters they transcribe. Spoken words
do not need 70 be spelled Few people
write anything other than business and
personal letters Would IL be possible,
he asked, 70 find out what words we're used
in this sort Of writing, and 20 make sure
that they were in the spelling booksY
PEW WORDS ARE USED.
He went TO dozen different organiza-
tions which received typical letters and
got great packs Of them for statistical
analysis He tabulated letters running
into more than 100000 words altogether
The surprising fart was developed that
but about 1000 different words were used
in all this correspondence. man with q
vocabulary Of 1000 words could have
| dictated these letters from thousands u
people, writing on hundreds Of subjects
Yet the child in the elementary grades
studies about 1900 words, and a desk
dictionary contains $4,000. Many ~
these words are 50 rare that the average
| individual never uses them. The practical
/! thing would seem to be TO learn the used
/ words first To find out those words was
/ the object Of this queer statistical com
/ pilation-
This unusual fact has recently been
4 determined. Folks use the word the
/ twice a. often as any other Next TO IL
/ il and Then follow Of and to. Since all
] Of us are cyclists the little pronOun / Is
| The fifth word IN use, and occurs one
third oftener than the pronoun you 4,
| in, that, for, il, was, Is viii and as, ap-
pear in order.
In eliciting the above facts the stat
1 isCieian has disprOven the widely ac-
+ cepted theory that he IS q dull and
tedious individual who may be depended
! upon to select for his enurneratIons some
/ obscure and technical subject IN which
the average run Of men and women are
not interested. Here IS one man 81 tables
and averages who Is human. he was
during the World War. Colonel Leonard r
Ayres, attached to the office Of the che
Of staff He IS now Mr.. Ayres, director q
education for the Russell sage Founda.
/ ton.
Half Of the bulk Of the letters writer
BY the people IS made up OF q simple list d
50 words, all OF which are Of one syllable
except the modest participant, any
Three hundred words constitute three
fourths OF the space in the letters we write
and l. thousand OF them do 90 per cent Of
the work In the first 200 OF most ire
quently used words there are but q half
dozen of more than one syllable. They
are nearly all homely words Of Anglo
Saxon derivation. They are such words a
when time, some, any, can, what send
them, more, week, night, their, good, say
| could, make write, thing
If YOU run along the list Of Colone
| Avres' words YOU find II the bottom of the
/ eight columns the following Men, came
matter, separate, tenth, push, concern
! and the thouSandth word, IN the fire
/ quency Gifts use, Is wreck.
Even were the language reduced to the
| simplicity of the thousand words most
| frequently used, there are few people who
/ can SpeIl tEeIO All COEIeCtlN- Among LlGAl
for instance, is Judgment, and IT is surpris-
| ing how many individuals there are who
profligately spend an uniustiied 'e" on
/ this stout member OF the dictionary
/ family. OF the thousand recommend Is the
word most frequently misspelled. Allege
] is another of the willing workers which
often proves an photographed stumbling
/ block
/ The word-statistician wanted 10 get
/ exact information as to which of his most
used words were hardest to spell There
| seemed but one way to tell and that wa,
/ to give them o folks TO try and record the
result Children in school were the readi-
est material available for conducting
I these experiments, so the thousand were
sent to SO cities where 10000 children
/ furrowed their brows over them, did the
best they could, and unknowingly made 8
record in q new field of investigation.
THE HARDEST TO SPELL.
The words were arranged in columns in
accordance with the difficulty of spelling