Zipf's demon
Language Log 2024-10-25
Summary:
George Kingsley Zipf is famous for his work on the power-law distribution of word frequencies, which has come to be known as Zipf's Law. And he's also known for the related "Law of Abbreviation", and the hypothesized balance between effort and efficacy. In his 1945 paper "The repetition of words, time-perspective, and semantic balance", Zipf […]