help me and my co-worker settle a disagreement (a deceptively challenging question inside)

[glenn1]

Thanks for checking out this thread and helping us out. The question is actually quite simple, yet devilishly hard as well.

Question: In standard modern usage, does written English generally contain more consonants, or vowels? That is to say, if you chose a book off a shelf or the NY Times 100 bestsellers list at random, which would tally the greater total of letters inside, vowels or consonants?

I've not been able to find the find the answer to this question on the web anywhere, and we both are absolutely convinced that our (opposite) convictions are correct, but neither one of us can really give a reasonably confident reason for our opinion. So i'm going to try this two different ways, if i can get an official answer that's great, otherwise we'll bow to the collective opinion of the ATOT crew via the magic of the ATOT poll.

 

[Rallispec]

does Y count as a vowel?

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: glenn1
Thanks for checking out this thread and helping us out. The question is actually quite simple, yet devilishly hard as well.

Question: In standard modern usage, does written English generally contain more consonants, or vowels? That is to say, if you chose a book off a shelf or the NY Times 100 bestsellers list at random, which would tally the greater total of letters inside, vowels or consonants?

I've not been able to find the find the answer to this question on the web anywhere, and we both are absolutely convinced that our (opposite) convictions are correct, but neither one of us can really give a reasonably confident reason for our opinion. So i'm going to try this two different ways, if i can get an official answer that's great, otherwise we'll bow to the collective opinion of the ATOT crew via the magic of the ATOT poll.

It wouldn't be hard for someone who knows perl to write some code that does a tally I think. I could probably do it in C.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Take your post here, and add them both up. Chances are that it is representative, so there you go.

 

[Rallispec]

Thanks for checking out this thread and helping us out. The question is actually quite simple, yet devilishly hard as well.

60 consonants
39 vowels


i'll go with consonants for 400, alex.

 

[Angrymarshmello]

Consonants. Count the number of vowels and consonants in your own post for reference. There aren't enough vowels to equal the number of consonants used

 

[SWirth86]

Question In standard modern usage does written English generally contain more consonants or vowels That is to say if you chose a book off a shelf or the NY Times bestsellers list at random which would tally the greater total of letters inside vowels or consonants

Ok, I picked these two sentances as a random estimate of English Literature.

218 Charcters

138 Consonants (Just counted them...it was boring)

80 Vowels

So, more consonats than vowels, and I can prove it*


*Of course, it will vary from sentence to sentance, but these two should be a fairly accurate estimate of the ratio.

 

[Rallispec]

Originally posted by: SWirth86
Question In standard modern usage does written English generally contain more consonants or vowels That is to say if you chose a book off a shelf or the NY Times bestsellers list at random which would tally the greater total of letters inside vowels or consonants

Ok, I picked these two sentances as a random estimate of English Literature.

218 Charcters

138 Consonants (Just counted them...it was boring)

80 Vowels

So, more consonats than vowels, and I can prove it*



*Of course, it will vary from sentence to sentance, but these two should be a fairly accurate estimate of the ratio.

i got 60% of letteres used being consonents in my earlier post using another sentence., looks you're findings show 58%, pretty damn close. i think we are right.

 

[SWirth86]

Originally posted by: Rallispec

Originally posted by: SWirth86
Question In standard modern usage does written English generally contain more consonants or vowels That is to say if you chose a book off a shelf or the NY Times bestsellers list at random which would tally the greater total of letters inside vowels or consonants

Ok, I picked these two sentances as a random estimate of English Literature.

218 Charcters

138 Consonants (Just counted them...it was boring)

80 Vowels

So, more consonats than vowels, and I can prove it*



*Of course, it will vary from sentence to sentance, but these two should be a fairly accurate estimate of the ratio.

i got 60% of letteres used being consonents in my earlier post using another sentence., looks you're findings show 58%, pretty damn close. i think we are right.

Of course I am right; I am never wrong.

 

[cmdavid]

i say consonants.. not positive though...

 

[cerebusPu]

definitely consonants. they come in pairs more often than vowels come in pairs.

 

[BachelorNumber1]

There have to be more consonants because they're needed to create distinct sounds. You can do "th", "cr", "sh", "fl", etc. but you cant put many vowels together for that purpose. You rarely see "oa" as in boa, "io" as in biometric, or "eo" as in creole. Its not exactly scientific, but consonants are needed to create different words. Or something like that..

 

[Cyberian]

Consonants.

I don't think it's even close.

 

[FoBoT]

um, i have no idea what this means

Markov Models: Exercise 2
Q = {v, c}


P(X1=v) = 0.3
P(X1=c) = 1 - 0.3 = 0.7


P(Xi=v|Xi-1=v) = 0.01
P(Xi=c|Xi-1=v) = 1 - 0.01 = 0.99
P(Xi=v|Xi-1=c) = P(Xi=v,Xi-1=c) / P(Xi-1=c) =
[P(Xi=v) - P(Xi-1=v) P(Xi=v|Xi-1=v)] / P(Xi-1=c) =
[0.3 - 0.003] / 0.7 = 0.42
P(Xi=c|Xi-1=c) = 1 - 0.42 = 0.58


The Markov property means (here) that the probability of occurrence for vowels and consonants only depend on the immediately preceding letter. This is clearly a false assumption for most languages. For example, the probability of observing a consonant after n preceding consonants is usually higher than the probability of observing a consonant after n+1 preceding consonants.

link

 

[AzNmAnJLH]

It's obvious consonants are used more often in all languages that uses the roman alphabet


rstlne....<<<<<<wheel o fortune

 

[djheater]

WHAT BOOK WAS WRITTEN WITHOUT USING THE LETTER "E"?

"La Disparition" is a French novel of complex intrique by George Perec, written without using the letter "E". It was published in France in 1969 and translated into English, as in 1995.


Get "The Void", by Gilbert Adair a French novel translated to English... in both cases WITHOUT using the letter e... anywhere.... it's odd, to say the least.

 

[Haircut]

Consonants definitely.

According to this site, vowels occur as 380 out of every 1000 letters.
Obviously consonants must then appear as 620 out of every 1000 letters, thus thus ratio of consonants to vowels is approx 5:3.

 

[yakko]

Originally posted by: djheater
WHAT BOOK WAS WRITTEN WITHOUT USING THE LETTER "E"?

"La Disparition" is a French novel of complex intrique by George Perec, written without using the letter "E". It was published in France in 1969 and translated into English, as in 1995.


Get "The Void", by Gilbert Adair a French novel translated to English... in both cases WITHOUT using the letter e... anywhere.... it's odd, to say the least.

Gadsby by Ernest Vincent Wright was also written without the letter E. Linky.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
um, i have no idea what this means

Markov Models: Exercise 2
Q = {v, c}


P(X1=v) = 0.3
P(X1=c) = 1 - 0.3 = 0.7


P(Xi=v|Xi-1=v) = 0.01
P(Xi=c|Xi-1=v) = 1 - 0.01 = 0.99
P(Xi=v|Xi-1=c) = P(Xi=v,Xi-1=c) / P(Xi-1=c) =
[P(Xi=v) - P(Xi-1=v) P(Xi=v|Xi-1=v)] / P(Xi-1=c) =
[0.3 - 0.003] / 0.7 = 0.42
P(Xi=c|Xi-1=c) = 1 - 0.42 = 0.58


The Markov property means (here) that the probability of occurrence for vowels and consonants only depend on the immediately preceding letter. This is clearly a false assumption for most languages. For example, the probability of observing a consonant after n preceding consonants is usually higher than the probability of observing a consonant after n+1 preceding consonants.

link

this doesnt fit our question exactly and isnt really a proper markovian chain. the Markovian assumption is that future states are not reliant on the past states but in language that isn't true.

but by tweaking that assumption to hold that 1 past state is releavent it provides some interesting results.

 

[wyvrn]

This is one of the more interesting threads I have seen on ATOT lately. My educated guess is consonants, for reasons already stated above.

 

[bizmark]

Originally posted by: yakko

Originally posted by: djheater
WHAT BOOK WAS WRITTEN WITHOUT USING THE LETTER "E"?

"La Disparition" is a French novel of complex intrique by George Perec, written without using the letter "E". It was published in France in 1969 and translated into English, as in 1995.


Get "The Void", by Gilbert Adair a French novel translated to English... in both cases WITHOUT using the letter e... anywhere.... it's odd, to say the least.

Gadsby by Ernest Vincent Wright was also written without the letter E. Linky.

damn that's some crazy stuff.

 

[Moonbeam]

Check here and do the math

Work done here In the neighborhood of 38 to 62 percent in favor of consonants.

 

[notfred]

#!/usr/bin/perl

$bookfile = "bookfile.txt";
open BOOK, "<$bookfile" || die "can't open file";
while ( <BOOK> ){
$book .= $_;
}
close BOOK;
@letters = split //, $book;
foreach $letter(@letters){
if ($letter =~ m/[aeiouy]/i){$vowel++}
elsif($letter =~ m/[bcdfghjklmnpqrstvwxz]/i){$cons++}
}
print "$vowel vowels and $cons consonants in $bookfile\n";

that will test a book saved as plain text.

edit actually works now.

On this page there are 4142 vowels and 6207 consonants in bookfile.txt

 

[Moonbeam]

That's about 40 to 60 % in favor of consonants, notfred, notfar, hehe, from the average I posted.

 

[Robet]

How did this argument start? You guys must have the most boring workplace ever.

As for the guy that wrote the book without using the letter E, one side of his brain must have been over developed. Now was it the left side because he analyzed all of the possible words in order to find a fit without an E. Otherwise, it could have been the right side because he was creative enough to come up with a novel without Es. Could he have been one of those whole brained people? Hmmm.

Anyway, these are the stats for my post:
276 consonants
185 vowels