The Principle of Least Effort Definition and Examples of Zipfs Law

The principle of least effort is the theory that the one single primary principle in any human action, including verbal communication, is the expenditure of the least amount of effort to accomplish a task. Also known as Zipfs Law,  Zipfs Principle of Least Effort, and the path of least resistance. The principle of least effort (PLE) was proposed in 1949 by Harvard linguist George Kingsley Zipf in Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort (see below). Zipfs immediate area of interest was the statistical study of the frequency of word use, but his principle has also been applied in linguistics to such topics as lexical diffusion, language acquisition, and conversation analysis. In addition, the principle of least effort has been used in a wide range of other disciplines, including psychology, sociology, economics, marketing, and information science. Examples and Observations Language Changes and the Principle of Least EffortOne explanation for linguistic change is the principle of least effort. According to this principle, language changes because speakers are sloppy and simplify their speech in various ways. Accordingly, abbreviated forms like math for mathematics and plane for airplane arise. Going to becomes gonna because the latter has two fewer phonemes to articulate. . . . On the morphological level, speakers use showed instead of shown as the past participle of show so that they will have one less irregular verb form to remember.The principle of least effort is an adequate explanation for many isolated changes, such as the reduction of God be with you to good-bye, and it probably plays an important role in most systemic changes, such as the loss of inflections in English.(C.M. Millward, A Biography of the English Language, 2nd ed. Harcourt Brace, 1996) Writing Systems and the Principle of Least EffortThe principal arguments advanced for the superiority of the alphabet over all other writing systems are so commonplace that they need not be repeated here in detail. They are utilitarian and economic in nature. The inventory of basic signs is small and can be easily learned, whereas it asks for substantial efforts to master a system with an inventory of thousands of elementary signs, like the Sumerian or Egyptian, which did what the Chinese, according to the evolutionary theory, should have done, namely give way to a system which can be handled with greater ease. This kind of thinking is reminiscent of Zipfs (1949) Principle of Least Effort.(Florian Coulmas, The Future of Chinese Characters. The Influence of Language on Culture and Thought: Essays in Honor of Joshua A. Fishmans Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. by Robert L. Cooper and Bernard Spolsky. Walter de Gruyter, 1991) G.K. Zipf on the Principle of Least EffortIn simple terms, the Principle of Least Effort means, for example, that a person in solving his immediate problems will view these against the background of his future problems, as estimated by himself. Moreover, he will strive to solve his problems in such a way as to minimize the total work that he must expend in solving both his immediate problems and his probable future problems. That in turn means that the person will strive to minimize the probable average rate of his work-expenditure (over time). And in so doing he will be minimizing his effort. . . . Least effort, therefore, is a variant of least work.(George Kingsley Zipf, Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort: An Introduction to Human Ecology. Addison-Wesley Press, 1949) Applications of Zipfs Law Zipfs law is useful as a rough description of the frequency distribution of words in human languages: there are a few very common words, a middling number of medium frequency words, and many low frequency words. [G.K.] Zipf saw in this a deep significance. According to his theory both the speaker and the hearer are trying to minimize their effort. The speakers effort is conserved by having a small vocabulary of common words and the hearers effort is lessened by having a large vocabulary of individually rarer words (so that messages are less ambiguous). The maximally economical compromise between these competing needs is argued to be the kind of reciprocal relationship between frequency and rank that appears in the data supporting Zipfs law.(Christopher D. Manning and Hinrich Schà ¼tze, Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing. The MIT Press, 1999)The PLE has been most recently applied as an explanation in the use of electronic resources, most notably Web sites (Adamic Huberman, 2002; Huberman et al. 1998) and citations (White, 2001). In the future it could be fruitfully used to study the tradeoff between the use of documentary sources (e.g. Web pages) and human sources (e.g. through email, listserves, and discussion groups); since both types of sources (documentary and human) are now located conveniently on our desktops, the question becomes: When will we choose one over the other, given that the difference in effort has lessened?(Donald O. Case, Principle of Least Effort. Theories of Information Behavior, ed. by Karen E. Fisher, Sandra Erdelez, and Lynne [E.F.] McKechnie. Information Today, 2005)

U.s. Dollar s World Reserve Status - 2027 Words

Throughout the 20th century, the United States has slowly constructed a global system of control. Its superior military, weaponry and intelligence apparatus have been crucial in this system, but an equally important factor has been its control of the global economy, and its primary weapon, the U.S. Dollar. The dollar’s world reserve status alone does not make it unique, but its deeply rooted role in American and global geo-politics certainly does. As Vassili Fouskas and Bà ¼lent Gà ¶kay point out in their book The New American Imperialism, â€Å"Dollar hegemony has always been strategic to the future of American global dominance, in many respects more important than America’s overwhelming military power. While military power is more visible and useful as a display, it is the dollar’s role as reserve currency that secures the domination of the U.S. in the global economic market place†. [1] This system is built on serious fault lines and its future is the most important issue for international relations today. To understand how the dollar secures American hegemony requires some review of history. After the Great Depression and World War II, the economic structures of the Old World powers were destroyed and in dire need of reconstruction. Only America remained in one piece, a situation that allowed it to decide how the new world order would work. As World War II was ending, representatives from the Allied nations were gathered in Bretton-Woods, New Hampshire, where negotiations for thisShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Book Century Of Enslavement Essay1366 Words   |  6 PagesU. S. MONETARY POLICY Where do we come from? How did we get here? These are questions each one of us eventually asks ourselves and, in so doing, searches for the answers. It is intrinsically woven into us to know the basis of what sustains us. 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Dandelion Wine free essay sample

The theme of how life and death go hand in hand is impacted by Great-Grandmother, Colonel Freeleigh, and Helen Loomis. Great- Grandma gives us a new perspective on eternal life. Colonel Freeleigh shows us the realities of death, and Heather Loomis teaches us about finding new life in death. Life and death going together is shown in many ways, but these three characters are tools that Bradbury uses to amplify his message. Colonel Freeleigh impacts the theme of how life and death go hand in hand by showing us the realities of death. First off, the Colonel tells us about you can die purely from living. â€Å"It doesn’t matter if being so alive kills a man; it’s better to have the quick fever every time† (Bradbury 131). Bradbury’s word choice, saying that being so alive can kill, shows that life and death go together. Next, Doug, talking about the death of the colonel, says, â€Å"Yesterday a whole lotta dust settled for good. We will write a custom essay sample on Dandelion Wine or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page And I didn’t even appreciate it at the time†¦ I never dreamed so many people could die so fast, Tom. But they did† (Bradbury 136). The tone here shows regret, specifically when Doug says that he didn’t even appreciate what he had at the time. When the colonel died, all the people in his memories and stories died with him, and Doug realizes what was lost, and it causes regret. Colonel Freeleigh’s death really shows you how life and death go together. Great-Grandmother shows us how people really live forever, despite death. Later in the chapter, Great-Grandma says, Important thing is not the me thats lying here, but the me thats sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me thats downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count. Im not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family† (Bradbury 183). The imagery here, especially the part where she describes everything she does, like cooking supper, show us how alive she will be in the memories of her family. Great grandma will live on forever in the minds and hearts of her family, even though she herself is dead. After this, Great-Grandma thinks to herself, â€Å"I’ve tasted every victual and danced every dance; now there’s one last tart I haven’t bit on, one tune I haven’t whistled. But I’m not afraid†¦ Death won’t get a crumb by my mouth I won’t keep and savor† (Bradbury 184). The tone here is calm and relaxed, Great- Grandma describing death as just another part of life, like the eating good food or dancing she states in the quote. Great Grandma’s calmness about passing away and talk about how life goes on after death proves that life goes hand in hand with death.