Prof. Medley,

The source you want is

John B. Carroll, Peter Davies and Barry Richman's 1971 The American
Heritage Word Frequency Book published by Houghton Mifflin Company
and American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc.

It has been out of print for some years, can sometimes be found in
the reference section of better libraries, and has exactly the
information you want plus much more.  Carroll, Davies and Richman is
the definitive source, based on much better sampling and research
than any of the others.


>Does anyone happen to know where I could obtain a categorized
>list of words from Thorndike and Lorge's _Teacher's Word Book of
>30,000 Words_?  (the list in T & L is alphabetical, as those familiar
>with the book will know; and in the back of the book there is a list
>of the first 1,000 words).
>
>By categorized list, I mean (for example) a list of the most
>common 2,000 words, then the next 1000, the next 2,000, (so that
>one could see what a basic 2000, 3000, and 5,000 word vocabulary
>might look like.  I have Nelson and Kucera's frequency count,
>which is helpful, but I would like to have a similar list from
>Thorndike & Lorge for comparison.
--

-----
Paul T. Wilson                                   [log in to unmask]
Professor of Reading                   Western Michigan University