Word Statistics

[Demesnedenoir]

So, taking an editing break, I got back into Nabukov's Favorite Word is Mauve and looked at some of the interesting statistics around language related to usage based on gender. Some interesting stuff, but not particularly useful, LOL.

When using the word hate to describe a character, in classic literature, it is most often used to describe a character of the same gender as the author.

Male characters grin way more than female characters across both classic and modern literature, both popular and literary, while the same is true for female characters screaming.

Male authors don't describe male characters as sobbing.

The 5 most common words to describe female characters (classic literature): Shivered, Wept, murmured, screamed, & married.

For male characters: muttered, grinned, shouted, chuckled, killed.

Female authors rarely attribute fear to their male characters, while male authors attribute fear to everyone on a more equal basis.

When using a variant of kissed, male authors tend to attribute the action to the woman, while female authors attribute it to the male character.

 

[pmmg]

Interesting. Somehow, I suspect there is some psychology to be revealed in all that, as well the microcosm of different male/female attitudes hiding underneath too. I just had a male character Grin last night, and I recall thinking...that's a word I dont use very often.

I am trying to recall if I had a male sobbing, but I am not sure. I think maybe one.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Every time I have a female character chuckle, it feels somehow odd, but I figure this is because, in most literature, men chuckle more often. Another interesting point about kiss:

In Erotica books, female authors almost always attribute the kiss to the male character, while male erotica writers are about 50/50.

 

[pmmg]

Wow...just looking at the sample pages on amazon, that is a pretty neat book.

 

[pmmg]

I dont think I would use chuckle for a female. Giggle sounds more likely. Not something I would have given much attention to before.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

A friend recommended it when it came out, and being a stats geek, I really enjoyed it. Some parts are more fascinating than the rest, but it's wild. The fact that mauve is Nabukov's favorite word is in itself interesting. I think he was fond of colors in general.

Wow...just looking at the sample pages on amazon, that is a pretty neat book.

 

[pmmg]

I am surprised anyone would have used Mauve enough for it to be counted. In my book grey and silver come up a lot, but I would not call them favs. They are just the color of the sky, and the mists about. Oh...and white comes up a lot too...

I've seeing on the internet that Blue has questionable history. The gist is, many cultures did not have a word for blue, and would have called it green. Not having a word, it affected their context. I think its dubious. I may not have a word, but I know the sky is a different color than the grass. Anyway, apparently, in language construction, Blue is not one of the first colors to get a name. So, in some early writings, it is missing as a descriptor.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

In one part of the gender section, he notes that marketers were able to take what appeared to be very innocuous words and peg the gender of people writing on social media and whatnot 80% of the time. It isn't as accurate for identifying novelists' genders but does better than 50/50.

 

[pmmg]

I am pretty sure I can guess the genders of people by their writing. Some are more obvious than others. I would be shocked if a computer using analytics could not do this with a near 100% accuracy rate given enough of a sample.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

How the author defines favorite word is rather precise, but here's thoughts on Mauve.

“For example, consider the list that we find when we look at Vladimir Nabokov’s work. The Lolita author’s favorite—his number one “cinnamon word,” used at least once in all of his eight books—is mauve. In total, he used it at a rate 44 times more common than the word is used in the Corpus of Historical American English. No other word in Nabokov’s work shows such a big difference when compared to ordinary writing.
And it makes perfect sense that a color, such as mauve, would be one of Nabokov’s “cinnamon words.” He was known to have synesthesia. ”

Excerpt From
Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve
Ben Blatt

‎Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve

‎Professional & Technical · 2017

books.apple.com

This material may be protected by copyright.

I am surprised anyone would have used Mauve enough for it to be counted. In my book grey and silver come up a lot, but I would not call them favs. They are just the color of the sky, and the mists about. Oh...and white comes up a lot too...

 

[pmmg]

That's actually not the part I remember from Lolita, but okay....

 

[Demesnedenoir]

They used shockingly simple words:

“The words revealed by the second two selections—actually, everything, their, above, something, the—are very different at first glance. They don’t fall into one gender stereotype or another; rather they’re function words that everyone uses. But in a 2003 paper, computer scientists looked into gender differences in writing by examining samples from the British National Corpus (both fiction and nonfiction), and they came back with some curious results. Their biggest findings dealt with these very small words. For instance, they claimed that across all genres of writing “females use many more pronouns” (I, yourself, their) and males use “many more noun specifiers” (a, this, these).

The notion that such a general conclusion could be drawn using entirely mundane words sounds absurd. However, the paper went on to show that by using the frequencies of just a few dozen tiny words, the authors were able to create an algorithm that accurately predicted an author’s gender 80 % of the time”

Excerpt From
Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve
Ben Blatt

‎Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve

‎Professional & Technical · 2017

books.apple.com

This material may be protected by copyright.

I am pretty sure I can guess the genders of people by their writing. Some are more obvious than others. I would be shocked if a computer using analytics could not do this with a near 100% accuracy rate given enough of a sample.

 

[pmmg]

Well...its interesting stuff. I may have to buy that book.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

It's a whole lot of fun if you're into such things. It goes into cliches, animal similes and a bunch of stuff I'd forgotten.

Well...its interesting stuff. I may have to buy that book.