摘要：

Data which had previously been published by several authors ( Ohlman, 1958; Pratt, 1942; Ohaver, 1933; Smith, 1943; Cox, 1947; Griffith, 1949; Gaines, 1956; Luhn, 1958) to describe the statistical characteristics of English words was examined to show the extent of their agreement. In addition, a detailed empirical study was made of two special types of English word: subject words and proper names. The data for the subject words and proper names was compared with previously reported data on subject words, proper names, and continuous text material. The statistical parameters which were measured and compared are: the distribution of initial letters, the distribution of terminal letters, the composite or total distribution of letters, the distribution of characters for each letter position, the distribution of bigrams, and the distribution of word lengths.

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