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Hahahahaha, Duuuuude, Yeeessss!: A two-parameter characterization of stretchable words and the dynamics of mistypings and misspellings

T. J. Gray, C. M. Danforth, and P. S. Dodds

PLOS ONE, 15, e0232938, 2020

Times cited: 12

Logline: In speaking and informal writing, people routinely stretch out words to help strengthen and modify meaning: “Yeessssss” is a real word but won't appear in any dictionary. We developed computational lexicographic tools to rigorously identify commonly stretched words in 8 years' worth of 100 billion tweets, and then showed we could classify them by two parameters: overall stretchiness and balance of stretch.

Abstract:

Stretched words like 'heellllp' or 'heyyyyy' are a regular feature of spoken language, often used to emphasize or exaggerate the underlying meaning of the root word. While stretched words are rarely found in formal written language and dictionaries, they are prevalent within social media. In this paper, we examine the frequency distributions of 'stretchable words' found in roughly 100 billion tweets authored over an 8 year period. We introduce two central parameters, 'balance' and 'stretch', that capture their main characteristics, and explore their dynamics by creating visual tools we call 'balance plots' and 'spelling trees'. We discuss how the tools and methods we develop here could be used to study the statistical patterns of mistypings and misspellings, along with the potential applications in augmenting dictionaries, improving language processing, and in any area where sequence construction matters, such as genetics.
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BibTeX:

@Article{gray2020a,
  author =	 {Gray, Tyler J. and Danforth, Christopher M. and
                  Dodds, Peter Sheridan},
  title =	 {Hahahahaha, {D}uuuuude, {Y}eeessss!: {A}
                  two-parameter characterization of stretchable words
                  and the dynamics of mistypings and misspellings},
  journal =	 {PLOS ONE},
  year =	 {2020},
  key =		 {language},
  volume =	 {15},
  pages =	 {e0232938},
  doi =		 {10.1371/journal.pone.0232938},
  note =	 {Available online at
                  \href{https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.03920}{https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.03920}},
}
 
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