Dear LPG,

Here is a question for you.  What is the most used word in the English language? 

This is a question that came up in conversation the other day while I was at one of my local day centres and although I can’t remember who posed the question, it got all the participants of that chat session thinking a bit. 

 I have to be honest now and tell you that, according to the internet, I was right when I mentioned the word ‘the’.

I always remember it being referred to as the ‘definite article’ when I was at school, and I am not really sure why, although you just know there would be an explanation to be found somewhere on the World Wide Web.

I took a look on line and found a site which corroborates my thoughts on the popularity of this little three lettered word and it status.  I then took a look at the French equivalent and found that at least one website brings the word in at number four, and in Spanish sites it is rated second. 

We use it all the time without really thinking about it.  It occurred to me to use the technology that Microsoft Word makes possible to work out that it gets slipped in there quite a lot.

I used my computer’s find facility to check and; let’s face it I have written about 273 words so far and used that particular word 16 times. 

So, on behalf of the English speaking world, I would like to pay homage to the ‘definite article’ today

WA , Woolwich

WA shared the sites which provided the information for the writing of this post’s findings…

(►►►)   (►►►)     (►►►)    (►►►)