Enter the word frequency list. Researchers take a giant mass of text—millions of words from TV scripts, novels, newspapers, the Internet, news broadcasts, academic papers, and magazines—and jam it all into a computer. The computer counts the words and spits out gold: the words of a language in order of their importance. It’s an extraordinary tool. With only a thousand words, you’ll recognize nearly 75 percent of what you read. With two thousand, you’ll hit 80 percent.
