Wiktionary talk:Frequency lists/Contemporary poetry

I suggest this page is kept, as it's interesting, and some people would find it useful to compare contemporary word usage in different domains. 93.96.236.8 17:07, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I would second that, if there's a difference between the frequency list for fiction and the list for poetry, I'd say it's worth keeping Markleci (talk) 11:56, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I find this list useful and an inspiration to create a poem from it.

Wiktionary:Frequency lists/Contemporary poetry
I don't see how this can achieve anything. A list of the most common 2000 words in contemporary poetry (quite how that's been compiled, I don't know). Since we have all 2000 words, what does this page achieve, and for who? --Mglovesfun (talk) 14:10, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * When is "contemporary"? Can we even tell when this category falls out of date? Equinox ◑ 19:45, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

This is useful for cryptanalysis, as sample texts are often taken from poetry. (anonymous)
 * Perhaps, but cryptanalysis is out of our scope. I don't object to someone putting it on their blog or something. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:23, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Does not some degree of frequency data fall under our purview? I would worry most about the fact that there's no evidence on how it's been compiled.--Prosfilaes 23:03, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't oppose Frequency lists, quite the opposite, I've used them myself, I oppose this particular list for the reasons stated above (both by me and by other users). Mglovesfun (talk) 17:56, 17 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep it. Certainly I would be happier with some information on where this list came from. However, I have made use of it, and others may do so. There are significant differences between how English is used in verse from how it is used in prose, and an indication of frequencies in the former has been useful to me in a project I am working on. It would be better still if I knew a little more about how the 511,000 words of contemporary poetry used were collected, but limited knowledge in that area does not by any means make the list unusable. The nomination says "I don't see how this can achieve anything", and "what does this page achieve, and for who?" However, apart from the fact that it has achieved something for me, even if it didn't, would there be any harm in keeping it here? The number of people for whom it achieves something may be very small, or it may not, but it is not zero. Anyway, even if it were zero there would be no harm in keeping it. What advantage would be achieved by deleting it? JamesBWatson (talk) 08:00, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It might have been a courtesy to have informed the author of the page of this discussion. I have now done so. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep - and I will only support deletion if it turns out to be a copyvio (which I suspect it may be). --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 13:31, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. I am voting keep on my own article. The nominator asked, "Since we have all 2000 words, what does this page achieve, and for who?" This is based on the false supposition that the only purpose for these frequency lists is to see what words Wiktionary doesn't already have. People use word frequency lists for a wide variety of purposes. Teaching poets and writers to spell the most common words makes this a useful pedagogical tool (see also Frequency lists/Contemporary fiction. This is the purpose I had in mind. As to how this was compiled, I went around the Internet -- sites like FictionPress.com and other places where poems were hosted. Two of the biggest contributors were 4degreez.com/4thkingdom.com and a high school creative writing class website that I can now no longer find. Once I reached over 500,000 words, I used Mike Scott's WordSmith software, including a lemma list, and produced this list. Jeremy Jigglypuff Jones (talk) 10:04, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "People use word frequency lists for a wide variety of purposes" yeah but that's not a reason for Wiktionary to have it. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:12, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 01:42, 3 August 2013 (UTC)