Words, Words

Believing that "what a man says reveals that man, if what he says is properly and intelligently analyzed." The Fourth Estate, journalistic trade sheet, set one Birdie Reeve, patient tabulator, to work pulling apart the speech made by Mr. Coolidge before a recent gathering of the Associated Press in Manhattan. It was believed that Miss Reeve's findings would enable newspapers "to give the people of the Nation a revealing portrait of the man they have chosen to lead them."

Whether or not the columns of words and figures that resulted were "a revealing portrait," they constituted an unusual layout of an address 4,646 words in length. There were:

1,246 different words.

Two words of one letter, "I" and "a." Not once had the President exclaimed "O," or been suited "to a T," the only other possibilities.

Twenty-four words of two letters. In these the President kept the cryptographer's well-known frequency rule almost perfectly: "of, to, in, it, is, be, he," etc. At "he," Mr. Coolidge, speaking chiefly of impersonal matters, had broken the rule, using only two "he's." "We" was far up the list, next to "be." He had said "me" but once.

Fifty-five three-letter words had been employed a total of 904 times. Here the frequency rule "the, and, for, you" was broken at "for," which became "our." Then came 53 "for's" and 37 "not's."

One hundred and eighteen four-letter words, which, instead of being led by "that" or "this," according to rule, included more "they's" than anything else. Four-letter words were used 649 times, more often than those of any other length.

One hundred and sixty-five five-letter words, used a total of 431 times. "Which, world, would, there, great" was the order.

One hundred and fifty-three six-letter words, used 294 times.

One hundred and fifty-nine seven-letter words, being the greatest assortment in a given length.

One hundred and fifty-five eight-letter words.

One hundred and forty-two of nine. 109 of ten, 90 of eleven, 34 of twelve, 24 of-thirteen, 9 of fourteen, 5 of fifteen, 2 of sixteen ("self-development," "responsibilities").