When Information is Free, Wisdom Wins

What Our Words Tell Us About Our World

In 1953, a list of words was identified to represent the most frequent words in English to help people learn English and to help ESL teachers teach English in the United States. This list, called the General Service List, was approximately 2,000 words and represented between 90% and 95% of all normal speech and 80% to 85% of common speech.

The list was updated in 2013 and further adjusted in 2023. What is interesting about these 2000+ word lists (the 2023 list is bigger than the 1953 list by about 20%) is how much the lists have changed in 70 years. You can see a full list of the words that were removed and added, as well as all the words that remain on both lists here.

Here are just a few interesting trends between the lists. I encourage you to think about each of them and how they relate to the world and how they’ve changed.

• There are more words, which isn't surprising in a world that is more complex than seventy years ago.

• The words reflect a more outwardly focused world than an inwardly one, with fewer words about us and more words about the systems we operate in and manage.

• More than a quarter of the discarded words are deemed concrete. Only about 7% of the words added scored that high. We see and describe our world as more abstract now than we did 70 years ago.

• There are nearly double as many adverbs on the current list. When more words come with conditions (i.e. Acceptable or adequate), we need to be able to qualify. Some adverbs added include definitely, fairly, significantly, and normally.

Our words matter to us individually – they shape our thinking, decisions and relationships. Apparently, looking at how we use words as a society has clues for us too.

I hope you use this big picture view to help you think about the smaller scope of the words you use in your organizations, on your teams and as an individual, because they give insight you might otherwise miss.

My ideas for this article came from a very interesting article. If you find this as interesting as I do, I encourage you to read more here.

When Information is Free, Wisdom Wins

The barriers to information acquisition get smaller every day. Information, once considered the keys to most kingdoms, isn’t a key anymore. It is an open door we can all walk through.

You've had this experience. You asked AI about something you already knew well, and got back a polished, confident-sounding answer. But something was off. Your experience told you it wouldn't work — not here, not with this team. You couldn't have explained it in the moment, but you knew.

Anyone can generate an answer, a summary, a plan, in seconds. What's scarce now is the person who can look at that answer and know whether it's true, whether it fits this situation, and whether it's worth acting on. That's wisdom. That's discernment. And those traits require judgment and insight. Those hold the keys to the kingdom today.