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Most popular phrase (ngram) in English

Posted 10 years ago

I've read that the most commonly-used phrase in modern American English (both written and spoken) is "I don't know".

Is there a way to construct this as a workable query? Wolfram Alpha seems to understand questions about the most common letter or most common/popular word, but doesn't parse questions about phrases or ngrams.

POSTED BY: David Sarokin
9 Replies
Posted 10 years ago

I've read that the most commonly-used phrase in modern American English (both written and spoken) is "I don't know".

Using Google's ngram tool i took a wild guess at a phrase and the evolution of culture. Your reference may be out of date.

enter image description here

POSTED BY: Douglas Kubler
Posted 10 years ago

Try it again, but this time click the "case insensitive" button. Let us know what you turn up.

POSTED BY: David Sarokin
Posted 10 years ago

Try it again, but this time click the "case insensitive" button. Let us know what you turn up.

A gain for both but with I do not know winning.. I missed the i (I) on a laptop screen.

POSTED BY: Douglas Kubler

Tolerance of this post does not mean that such language is generally acceptable on the Wolfram Community.

(A better comparison phrase could have been chosen.)

POSTED BY: Moderation Team
Posted 10 years ago
POSTED BY: David Sarokin

Interesting question. You probably need to say whether you mean spoken, written or say internet-published text - or all of them. Wolfram Language can tell you for sure how many instances in a particular text:

Grid[{#[[2]], 
    Length[StringCases[ExampleData[#], "I don't know"]]} & /@ {
   {"Text", "DonQuixoteIEnglish"},
   {"Text", "AliceInWonderland"},
   {"Text", "OriginOfSpecies"}}, Alignment -> Left, Frame -> All]

enter image description here

POSTED BY: Sam Carrettie

I think he was joking.

POSTED BY: Frank Kampas
Posted 10 years ago

Douglas...I'm not sure what in the Guidelines you're referring to, but if you have more to add, please feel free. I am looking for "most common phrase" info, and am hoping that Wolfram Alpha is a useful tool for exploration of that topic.

POSTED BY: David Sarokin
Posted 10 years ago

IMHO it's not IDK. (That's all I will say re: Community Guidelines)

POSTED BY: Douglas Kubler
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