Nature 179, 595 (16 March 1957); doi:10.1038/179595a0

Distribution of Word Frequencies

I. J. GOOD

25 Scott House, Princess Elizabeth Way, Cheltenham.

THE purpose of this communication is to explain, in terms of the theory of information, the implications of the Zipf distribution of word frequencies¹. The distribution is formally identical with the Pareto income and Willis taxonomic distributions, but the present discussion is restricted to word frequencies. The discussion resembles that of Mandelbrot² but is simpler. The discussion by Parker-Rhodes and Joyce³ also resembles Mandelbrot's, but is fallacious.

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3. Parker-Rhodes, A. F. , and Joyce, T. , Nature, 178, 1308 (1956). | Article |
4. Corbet, A. S. , Fisher, R. A. , and Williams, C. B. , J. Anim. Ecol., 12, 42 (1943). Good, I. J. , Biometrika, 40, 237 (1953).
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