The Prevalence of 'the'...

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-K2-

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Recently I noticed where I excessively used the word 'the' in my MS, so I performed a highlight to flag them all during edits and I'm dumbfounded at how many I've used. Some I can eliminate with a little rewording, the most glaring examples those I can simply eliminate. Even still, with so many general descriptions (like 'the people' instead of overusing everyone/everybody, places and things), I'm still left with a gazillion 'the's.

Is that common or am I missing something?

K2
 
Yea, 'the' is one of the only words you can really spam, along with 'a' 'an' 'and' etc.

Edit: as long as you don't keep repeating them in the same sentence I suppose. Like you don't list items like this and this and this and this and this...
 
Well, I can definitely see were I've overused it. Straight elimination is great (where possible);
Eg.:
Once there, they pried apart the wood, brick, and stone, adding to the rubble.
Once there, they pried apart wood, brick, and stone, adding to the rubble.

Other places, rewording required to eliminate the 'the(s)' will make the text read easier. So, it's an improvement there as well. Some places, however, I have a lot of this nonsense (just making this one up on the fly):
The guards moved out on the walk, rousting the people to force them up the street.

When you highlight them they become real obvious. A quick check finds I'm hovering around 7.5%--as it stands--with all the description and action. That's a whole lot of 'the.'

Thanks for the input. @tegeus-Cromis , what's a Starfire?

K2
 
Obsessing over this a little, in my search I encountered a list of the 100 most commonly used words: 100 Most Common English Words (Learn 85% of English in 100 Days) and naturally, it's rather meaningless on its own. Another statistic stated that 'the' makes up on average 7% of texts (of varied genres and venues), but this site I found surprising: Literature Statistics paying special note to the second graph considering the 100 most frequently used word list. Older texts average around 50% of their words are of the 100 most common, and newer texts fall around 43.7%.

K2
 
-K2- said:
Older texts average around 50% of their words are of the 100 most common, and newer texts fall around 43.7%.
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Perhaps just because usage changes over time?

But looking at the graphs, it seems that Twilight used a lot of very short sentences when compared to the old work on there. Honestly no idea how you can write a book consisting of an average of less than ten word sentences. It does help explain the percentage difference though, as with lots of short sentences you won't need as many connecting words (I forget what they're called...) like 'and'.

I also dislike the lack of semicolons in the modern world :)

But yea, well done for digging those graphs up, that was an interesting read.
 
tegeus-Cromis said:
I actually linked to such a list in my first reply here...
Click to expand...

Sorry, didn't work for me either. I get below... Regardless, thanks for helping out! I notice your cartoon works just fine though. Priorities? :unsure::whistle:;)


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K2
 
-K2- said:
makes up on average 7% of texts
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I've just checked WiP1 and "the" makes up 4.81% of the words, which doesn't seem excessive... not that I'm bothered that much by the repeated appearance of a word that (like said) is often assumed to be invisible (or, at least, not a word that calls attention to itself).

As I've not been bothered about it, I now wonder why it's lower than the supposed average** (i.e. 7%). I suppose one reason is that I'm quite keen on numbering or naming (or otherwise identifying) people, places and other things, something that automatically does away with many instances of "the".


** - Who knows, but 4.81% might be thought high in a novel. :eek:;):)
 
Ursa major said:
I've just checked WiP1 and "the" makes up 4.81% of the words, which doesn't seem excessive... not that I'm bothered that much by the repeated appearance of a word that (like said) is often assumed to be invisible (or, at least, not a word that calls attention to itself).

As I've not been bothered about it, I now wonder why it's lower than the supposed average** (i.e. 7%). I suppose one reason is that I'm quite keen on numbering or naming (or otherwise identifying) people, places and other things, something that automatically does away with many instances of "the".
** - Who knows, but 4.81% might be thought high in a novel. :eek:;):)
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Better/frugal prose perhaps? As an example:

Most of the people ran toward the west.
Most people ran westward.
Most people ran west.

I've noticed that my problem is, as I've tried to correct my poor grammar and phrasing in previous edits, I increased a lot of the 'glue' words compared to how I usually write. That's not to say I wasn't lacking some before. But in an attempt to get things right, I've made mine too formal and then some (unfortunately, I'm fighting many battles with my skills at the same time. So, to avoid half-way corrections, I correct the whole MS one way, then need to go back and correct the corrections).

I just checked Orwell's 1984, and it's at 6.184% for the word 'the.' Another reason might be the use of general/non-specific noun use? For instance, in my story, my character is constantly in a dense crowd that tends to react in unison. So, the crowd, the people, the masses gets used a lot. Street, buildings, and so on are also common. Perhaps you've been more direct and specific in what you've written?

@Ursa major ; a better example perhaps, I compared an older version of tA LS-G8 to the latest one. In the older version I'm at 4.5% 'the' word use, but in the newer version, roughly 7.75%. I liked the way I wrote before, but it contained too many flaws yet read/flowed beautifully (IMO). So, I need to recapture that old style while applying acceptable rules and find a happy medium.

K2

K2
 
Last edited:
-K2- said:
I've made mine too formal and then some
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I had a tendency to do that (which probably still surfaces more often than I'd want it to)...

...and still do when posting (here and elsewhere) when trying to come over as more serious (one of the things a joker like me sometimes needs to do to be taken seriously).

However, because I usually write my fiction in quite close Third Person -- and: 1) try to tailor the narration to the nature of each PoV character (to a greater or lesser extent); 2) like using Free Indirect Speech -- I endeavour to restrict my more formal writing to those PoV characters who are meant to cleave more closely to such formality and occasions where they would be more likely to do so.

This, of course, allows me to be much more informal when writing narration, giving me lots of opportunities to simply cut out words (such as "that"), which rarely appear in, say, people's thoughts and dialogue. Anyway, that's the intention. As for the implementation: that's not really for me to say.
 
.matthew. said:
Honestly no idea how you can write a book consisting of an average of less than ten word sentences.
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Not the whole book, but I do have one 1st person POV that tends heavily towards short sentences, mostly because the character is a grumpy, misanthropic **** and the almost stream-of-consciousness narrative contains a lot of short declarative sentences, or infuriated questions. (If my character were a member here, the "Pet hates..." thread would deluged with his rantings.)
 
.matthew. said:
Honestly no idea how you can write a book consisting of an average of less than ten word sentences.
Click to expand...

Following @Biskit 's and your comments...I've read a few novel/las of late where after a chapter I'm done. It's not that they were first person (though it's difficult to recall all), but where every sentence was less than ten words and the vocabulary was on par with newspeak. Eg.: Bob ran to her. Mary waited smiling. They met and embraced. Happy, they walked to town.

The entire story was like that. It's like reading a Dick and Jane primer.

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K2
 
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