The paradox of Ts

I finally got around to reading The Paradox of Choice. I haven't actually gotten to the part where it'll help me decide whether I'll regret getting the English Cheddar instead of the Pesto Grilled Cheese (I did) or whether I'll regret getting the Cheesequake Blizzard instead of the Cookie Dough Blizzard (I totally didn't), but I have high hopes for the book.

Early on, though, it cites that thing people always use as an example for the availability bias: when asked whether there are more words with T as the first letter or T as the third letter, people always go for words beginning with T because those are easier to think of. Apparently, they're wrong.

This anecdote has always bothered me. OK, so it's easier to think of words that start with T. But all things being equal, there should be the same number of Ts in first and third position. And T is a common onset in English. Of course, no one actually ever comes out and says whether the numbers are equal or whether 3rd-position T is actually more common. And morewords.com seems to be hiding from the internet now that I decided to write this post, so I can't provide you with those numbers.

Then, today, I realized: it could be the prefixes that make the difference. Tour, detour, turn, return, tie, untie... um, tern, intern? English has a lot of two-letter prefixes. So my guess is that if you took prefixed words out of the equation, the difference would even out to some degree or even completely.

Damn you, internet, without your support, I can't make any bold claims!