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I'd really like to see this broken down by established vocabulary and made up vocabulary. I think that would really start to show who were the best lyricists on

I'd really like to see this broken down by established vocabulary and made up vocabulary. I think that would really start to show who were the best lyricists on both ends. Rappers with a lot of made up words might be on the far left, and rappers with a lot of unique words that aren't made up would be on the far right. Both sides of the scale would show rapping talent on different dimensions. Influential rappers like E-40 who add new words to the vocabulary, and wordy rappers like Aes on the right who use a really dense and descriptive vocabulary.

Blahah 12y ago
Would also be nice to see size of the corpus controlled for. What's the rate at which they use new words?
- TheCoelacanth 12y ago
  This chart already does that. The corpus for each artist is their first 35,000 words of lyrics.
coherentpony 12y ago
>Rappers with a lot of made up words might be on the far left It's interesting that you think that. I'd recommend you look at this: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.ht... At what point do 'made up' words become 'established'. After they've been published? If so, every made up word in a song should be considered 'established'.
- benihana 12y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that being on the far left or being made up meant 'worse' in any way. Quite the opposite in fact - I think that if someone can create a word or phrase that becomes normal in everyday usages, it's a sign of... something. Maybe influence, maybe genius. Like you said, Shakespeare first used words that we consider common. I have no idea at what point a word becomes 'established' though.
  - danielsf 12y ago
    I actually revised the conclusion to address this issue. Check it out on the site.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Somebody was listening to "To the Best of Our Knowledge" this weekend, methinks.
  - coherentpony 12y ago
    I don't know what that is, but I'll check it out.
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      They happened to have a bit on Shakespeare's word invention: http://www.ttbook.org/book/shakespeares-inflence-stephen-marche http://www.ttbook.org/book/shakespeares-inflence-stephen-mar... Claim is that some 1700 or so of his 30,000 word vocabulary was invented by him. Including terms such as "assasination" and "gnarled".
esperluette 12y ago
EVERY word is a "made-up word". Some words were just made up longer ago than others. If you held everyone to this criteria you would severely impoverish language.
danielsf 12y ago
OP here. made up vocabulary is basically all of hip hop. look at any lyrics file and very little is "established", yaknowwhatimsayin?

Blahah 12y ago

Would also be nice to see size of the corpus controlled for. What's the rate at which they use new words?

TheCoelacanth 12y ago
This chart already does that. The corpus for each artist is their first 35,000 words of lyrics.

coherentpony 12y ago

>Rappers with a lot of made up words might be on the far left It's interesting that you think that. I'd recommend you look at this: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.ht... At what point do 'made up' words become 'established'. After they've been published? If so, every made up word in a song should be considered 'established'.

benihana 12y ago
I didn't mean to imply that being on the far left or being made up meant 'worse' in any way. Quite the opposite in fact - I think that if someone can create a word or phrase that becomes normal in everyday usages, it's a sign of... something. Maybe influence, maybe genius. Like you said, Shakespeare first used words that we consider common. I have no idea at what point a word becomes 'established' though.
- danielsf 12y ago
  I actually revised the conclusion to address this issue. Check it out on the site.
dredmorbius 12y ago
Somebody was listening to "To the Best of Our Knowledge" this weekend, methinks.
- coherentpony 12y ago
  I don't know what that is, but I'll check it out.
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    They happened to have a bit on Shakespeare's word invention: http://www.ttbook.org/book/shakespeares-inflence-stephen-marche http://www.ttbook.org/book/shakespeares-inflence-stephen-mar... Claim is that some 1700 or so of his 30,000 word vocabulary was invented by him. Including terms such as "assasination" and "gnarled".

esperluette 12y ago

EVERY word is a "made-up word". Some words were just made up longer ago than others. If you held everyone to this criteria you would severely impoverish language.

danielsf 12y ago

OP here. made up vocabulary is basically all of hip hop. look at any lyrics file and very little is "established", yaknowwhatimsayin?