4 ms·
This is fascinating. I'm only a recent listener of hip-hop (primarily because of Earl Sweatshirt and Odd Future) and I'm in awe of the vernacular. And similarl
by unfunco 12y ago
This is fascinating. I'm only a recent listener of hip-hop (primarily because of Earl Sweatshirt and Odd Future) and I'm in awe of the vernacular.
And similarly, as a boredom exercise a few weeks ago I did some lexical analysis of the song Timber (the monstrosity was being constantly played on the radio at the time) and here's what I came out with:
"83.1% of the words in the lyrics are five letters or less, 58.9% are four letters or less. The lexical density (the number of unique words divided by the total number of words, multiplied by one-hundred) is 29.1%. There is only one word in the song which has three or more syllables. Eleven people were involved with the writing of the song, each of them capable of producing just nine unique words each."
- philtar 12y agoYou must be using big words in case someone does the analysis on HN comments. Definitions: Vernacular: ?? Lexical analysis (in this case): ratio of unique words to non unique words Lexical density: What persent of the words is unique?
- unfunco 12y agoThe paragraph in quotes is copied and pasted from when I wrote that a few weeks ago, there's a definition in parentheses following lexical density. Analysis is a word that should not need a definition attached to it (you have used it yourself in your comment.) Vernacular is commonly used in the United Kingdom. Google will provide you with a definition.
- orbitur 12y ago> Eleven people were involved with the writing of the song, each of them capable of producing just nine unique words each. I'm not sure why this is notable when you consider that lyrics are probably the least important aspect of a song intended for the top 40. If you take a moment to listen to the melody and production, you'd probably see why it's credited to 10+ people. That song is a well-oiled machine.
- unfunco 12y agoMy last sentence was intended as a satire, lyrics are obviously not uniformly distributed between writers. I completely agree with you though, the song (despite my disdain for it) is incredibly catchy, and definitely not intended to be thoughtful or thought provoking in nature.
- danielsf 12y agothis is brilliant. OP here. We should work together.
- Avshalom 12y agoIs that with or without 'the' 'be' 'to' not that its any sort of literary accomplishment regardless but English is a terrible language for lexical density.