NotPhil aced the classics edition of the Word Frequency quiz, bringing the quiz scoreboard to a 1-1 tie with flagamuffin.
This time the titles are from the modern era. Can you match each book with the list of most-frequently-appearing nouns it contains?
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
The Encyclopedia Brittanica
The Golden Bowl by Henry James
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
Ulysses by James Joyce
(1) lord king man duke time heart queen lady death hand
(2) man father time love money face life heart moment god
(3) man time eyes hand street father day face night head
(4) time lady sister family man day hope father letter room
(5) time man way hand head boy day night eyes face
(6) time way men work place man head room air water
(7) time way moment question fact eyes father place face life
(8) work day francs man hotel money men people tramps food
(9) year time bridge town century building number city government lifeI thought I might wait a bit to see if anyone submits a correct answer. lil was not embarrassingly wrong so I did not tip her off. I like the #quiz tag too and hope it won't fade away. I was not embarrassed to contribute ridiculously incorrect answers to the physics quiz and your math quiz. That's how we learn, right?
Here's my guess. wasoxygen, pm me if I'm embarrassingly wrong and I'll change it. (1) Shakespeare
(2) Brothers Karamazov
(3) Ulysses
(4) Pride and Prejudice
(5) Great Expectations
(6) Britannica
(7) The Golden Bowl
(8) Down and Out in Paris and London
(9) Cryptonomicon
1 - Shakespeare
2 - Karamazov
3 - Ulysses
4 - P&P
5 - Great Expectations
6 - Britannica
7 - Golden Bowl
8 - Down and Out
9 - Cryptonomicon I really thought 4 was Great Expectations, but that doesn't leave a slot for Pride and Prejudice. Fairly sure about 1,2,8,9. Never read the Golden Bowl.
Time is the #1 noun in the 450-million word Corpus of Contemporary American English, at position 52, followed by nouns War appears at 350, peace at 936. Man (94) woman (111) and child (115) are a bit closer together. The words we use may be indicitive of the way we think. A suggestive pair is problem (171) and solution (1224).
The word word appears at position 245. year people way day man thing woman life child
Feeling bad is not required, nor encouraged. These books were selected for the ease with which a plaintext electronic version could be located. Guesses are welcome. Purists may as well start with the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.