Word Nerd!

Over Christmas break we had fun calling my sister "Bird Nerd" because of her new-found love for bird-watching and her new job as a biology TA for a professor who teaches a Gen Ed Biology course that, rather than teach about Biology, only teaches about birds, and requires students to go out and try to find as many local species of birds as they can.

Why do I bring this up? Just for fun, mostly, but also as an introduction to a story about my own nerdiness. When I was a kid, I had cereal most mornings for breakfast. And while I ate my cereal, I used to entertain myself by counting the number of times that certain letters appeared in the text on the box. Usually I would just do the vowels, but occasionally I'd also branch out and count some of the more prevalent consonants. Some sides of the box obviously were more word-rich environments. The front usually doesn't (didn't? I hardly ever eat cereal any more) have a lot of writing, and when it does it's usually large font, low word count. The side with the nutrition information was always a good source of words, in both the count of essential vitamins and minerals (niacin, potassium, etc.) as well as in the list of ingredients (enriched wheat flour, high fructose corn syrup, etc.)

Obviously the vowels were generally more common than the consonants, although 's' sometimes could be close to the big boys. Of the vowels, 'e' was by far the most common. Because I'm sure you were dying to know. Anyone else spend their breakfast hours counting vowels on their cereal boxes? No? Anyone?