moreTs
morewords.com is back, so I can give you a few numbers on the Ts. Unfortunately, it cuts off once it gets to over 2000 returns, so I have to do them individually.
| initial t | 3rd position t | |
| 3 letter words | 57 | 84 |
| 4 letter words | 249 | 211 |
| 5 letter words | 553 | 444 |
| 6 letter words | 907 | 858 |
Up to this point, the total is 1766 vs. 1597. Initial T is ahead by 10%. But once we get into seven-letter words, prefixes start making an impact. Let's just consider "re": retable, retacks, retails, retaken, retaker, retakes, retaped, retapes, retaste, retaxed, retaxes, reteach, reteams, retears, retells, retests, rethink, retiled, retiles, retimed, retimes, retints, retired, retirer, retires, retitle, retools, retorts, retouch, retrace, retrack, retract, retrain, retread, retreat, retrial, retried, retries, retrims, retuned, retunes, returns, retwist, retying, retyped, retypes. All of those have viable words after the re- prefix.
Actually, just looking at these words, it seems like the impact should have been seen a couple of letters earlier- there are a lot of -s and -d. Anyway, on with the numbers:
| initial t | 3rd position t | |
| 7 letter words | 1363 | 1512 |
| 8 letter words | 1535 | 1944 |
| 9 letter words | 1208 | 1906 |
Here's the problem: initial T and 3rd position T have both already peaked at the 8 letter word level, but initial T declines a lot faster. Think about those prefixes: as long as 3rd position T benefits from prefixes, it can always beat initial T. No matter how many initial T words there are, there will be more that are 2 letters longer with prefixes. But, among shorter, more common, less morphologically complex words, they're pretty close.
| initial t | 3rd position t | |
| 10 letter words | 905 | 1764 |
| 11 letter words | 688 | 1410 |
| 12 letter words | 489 | 1106 |
| 13 letter words | 319 | 795 |
| 14 letter words | 221 | 494 |
| 15 letter words | 122 | 346 |
| 16 letter words | 74 | 248 |
By this time, we're talking words like "retinoblastomata" and "interpenetrating." Are shorter words easier to think of than those? Sure. But should we really be saying that people are so stupid because they think there are more initial T words than 3rd position T words? No. Up until 6 letters, there are actually more. So the "availability bias" may be more about word frequency than initial vs. medial.
The moral of the story is that that 3rd position is not as arbitrary as you might think. In fact, comparing 1st vs. 2nd position, 1st position wins by a LOT. At every level from 3-10 letter words, 1st position has more than twice as many words as 2nd position. I'm tired of making tables, but it's true. But that wouldn't make such a nice little anecdote for the availability bias, now, would it?
Thanks, internet, for backing me up!
posted by karenlikescereal @ 12:12 p. m.
4 Comments:
I think you're missing the point. Availability bias here has to do with the fact that we categorize words based on first letters, not third letters, and that's why people can identify words that begin with T faster than words that have T as a third letter (and thus, mistakenly, assume there are more of them). This is a reasonable point, and pointing out that the number of words of each is relatively close doesn't change the conclusion.
However, I think in order to make any conclusion about availability bias here, you would also need to include the probability of a word being used. That is, who cares if there are more third-letter-T words if no one ever uses them?
If common words (say, 6 or fewer letters) that start with T are more plentiful than words that use T as a third letter, (as per your statistics, it seems to be the case) then the problem is not that we just can't properly count them, it's that our vocabularies don't include them. So it's not availability bias, it's just a function of our limited common-use vocabularies.
For example, in this post, I've used 13 unique words that start with T and 5 unique words that have T as a third letter. It wouldn't be availability bias for me to conclude then that T-starting words are more common (and thus more of them exist).
I think you totally agree with me.
>the problem is not that we just can't properly count them, it's that our vocabularies don't include them. So it's not availability bias, it's just a function of our limited common-use vocabularies.
That's what I'm saying. The T thing is a bad example of the availability bias.
A better example is that people easily bring to mind famous and over-reported plane crashes, so death by plane crash is considered much more common than it really is.
I'm not arguing that we don't categorize words by their first letter. Obviously we do. I'm just examining *why* there are more words with T as the third letter than as the first letter, since English phonotactics don't have any restriction on initial T. My conclusion is that if we only considered morphologically simple words, this would probably not be the case.
My other jab at the anecdote is that there actually ARE more words with 1st position T than 2nd position T. That makes it useless as an illustration of the availability bias.
Yep, I agreed with your conclusion - I just disagreed with how you got there.
Which, rereading your post, you did actually mention what I was talking about. I was just confused by all the counting and concern about "morphologically complex." I don't see that morphologically simple/shorter words are necessarily more common.
>I don't see that morphologically simple/shorter words are necessarily more common.
They are.
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