Most common words in English about half of all written English. According to a study cited by Robert McCrum in "The Story of English," all of the first hundred of the most common words in English are of Anglo-Saxon origin, except for "people", ultimately from Latin "populus", and "because", in part from Latin "causa". Some lists of common words distinguish between word forms, while others rank all forms of a word as a single lexeme (the form of the word as it would appear in a dictionary). For example, the lexeme "be" (as in "to be") comprises all its conjugations ("is", "was", "are", "were", etc.),
Latin word order approval: He notes that the sentence would be ruined rhythmically if the word order of the last three words were changed to "comprobavit fili temeritas". What was apparently admired here was the clausula of "comprobavit" with its double trochaic – u – – rhythm; whereas "temeritas" would make a rhythm of u u u –, which Cicero says would produce an unsatisfying effect in Latin, despite being recommended by Aristotle. The 1st-century A.D. teacher of oratory, Quintilian, remarks that hyperbaton (switching words round) is often used to make a sentence more euphonious. He gives the example of the following sentence