Describing what I do using only the 10,000 most used words.

[purplecat]

From miss_s_b:

I try to find things out about how to build computer stuff that works stuff out on it's own and then I try to show that it works right.

Words I was forbidden included: robots, systems, decision, choice, correctly and properly.

You can try it yourself here

Comments

[samjohnsson]

how did computer survive!?

[purplecat]

Apparently they are the most used 1,000 words in contempory fiction - which is a fairly specialised data set.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

10,000 or 1,000?

/mathspedant

[purplecat]

Ooh! you are right.

[fififolle]

Hmm! That was hard!! Stuff and things are such useful words. Mr fifi tries to ban them in our household, LOL.

[purplecat]

So can he decribe what he does in the ten hundred most used words without also using either stuff or things?

[fififolle]

LOL! No, he couldn't *veg*

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

I help people who are sad or having a problem to decide what they need, and how to get better, and I stay with them while they do that.

I was forbidden lots of words like support, choose, dialogue, it was hard!

[purplecat]

Suprisingly so!!

Though your description sounds vaguely poetic for all that... or if not poetic exactly like an epigram or something similar.

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

Awww, thank you!

And one of the most misused words.

[jhgowen.livejournal.com]

its, not it's. /other sort of pedant.

Interesting that all these words are one syllable, except for about, and the only longish word that is commonly used is computer.

Re: And one of the most misused words.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

If you check the about stuff, it's not really 'most commonly used words' - it uses a 1000-word list from contemporary fiction. Hence, I suspect, the appearance of words like gaze, breath, especially, seriously, themselves in preference to, for example; teach, create, correct, weather

Re: And one of the most misused words.

[purplecat]

That's interesting. I'd vaguely assumed the were using one of the big word use databases - I think there's a large one based on phrases used across a lot of newspapers that the natural language people are always keen on.

Re: And one of the most misused words.

[purplecat]

its, not it's. /other sort of pedant.

Damn! And I actually caught and changed that when I typed it in, only the wrong way around.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Oh, fun!

"I talk to boys and girls about how things work. Some of the time I talk to them about the way that things move, and what makes them move, and what makes one thing push or pull another thing.

The rest of the time we talk about the stuff people have said in the past when they thought about what there is in the world, and why we think the things which we think, and why we do the things we do.

Once each year I also spend a lot of time making sure that all of the people who work at the same place as me know where they should go and what they should talk about at different times.

As well as this, I write down stories about people who looked at the stars and worked out ideas about them. These stories have been put into a book for anyone to buy. This makes me happy!"

[purplecat]

This makes me happy!

An excellent way to end!

Try describing what I do without using the word 'atom'.

[jhgowen.livejournal.com]

'I take the smallest building blocks of matter there are and try to build things one block at a time. Then I write papers and give talks to tell other people what we do and how we do it.'