Re: [school-discuss] most frequently used words

["Douglas S. Blank" <dblank@brynmawr.edu>]

On a related note to computing the most frequently used words is the 
following project on attempting to determine if Shakespeare wrote all of 
the plays attributed to him. They look at percentages of rare word usage 
between different (Shakespearean) plays.

This might be an interesting project for students to have a "lab 
exercise" to explore Shakespeare from another angle. Or it might be an 
interesting project to teach some programming skills.

Or it might be too much of a "deconstruction" of the text to consider 
for use in the English lit classroom. Anyone try such radical methods?

Anyway, you can check out http://www.totus.org/SHAXICAN/, and also 
follow the "Steve's work" link at the top of that page. He has lots of 
Perl scripts that someone might find useful for exploring such questions.

It may be true, then, that "Shakespeare's plays weren't written by him, 
but by someone else of the same name." See TR-96 Douglas R. Hofstadter, 
Gray A. Clossman, and Marsha J. Meredith. July, 1980.

-Doug

-- 
Douglas S. Blank,         Assistant Professor
dblank@brynmawr.edu,            (610)526-6501
Bryn Mawr College,   Computer Science Program
101 North Merion Ave,       Park Science Bld.
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010  dangermouse.brynmawr.edu