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Hamlet Drinking Game

Analysis suggests "drink" as an optimal word on which to drink.
Drinking game criteria dictates using a word with frequency near the target number of drinks, which depends on drink concentration. In Hamlet that ranges from "absolute" (2) to "that" (389). If shots, in the 5-7 range would be reasonable adult non-heavy drinking number. Beer in contrast would need a common word. I've played with words in the 6-9 range (such as "wisdom" or "Hamlet") and a problem is they go by fast. So picking a higher frequency word makes sense, expecting to miss some. Conveniently the word "drink" occurs 15 times. This allows missing some, or drinking heavily. Furthermore, they're fairly distributed, culminating at the end with poisoned wine.
I therefore propose "DRINK" as an optimal word on which to drink as a drinking game during Hamlet.

Hamlet word occurrences analysis, 10-20 repeats range, by descending frequency:
 20 till
 20 poor
 20 ophelia
 20 o'er
 20 means
 20 friends
 20 england
 20 before
 19 words
 19 without
 19 once
 19 denmark
 19 blood
 19 believe
 18 there's
 18 many
 18 keep
 18 is't
 18 hand
 18 father's
 18 else
 18 about
 17 young
 17 welcome
 17 still
 17 noble
 17 long
 17 little
 17 first
 17 find
 17 farewell
 17 cause
 16 youth
 16 thoughts
 16 that's
 16 sword
 16 speech
 16 since
 16 question
 16 marry
 16 majesty
 16 hast
 16 faith
 16 body
 15 yourself
 15 watch
 15 tongue
 15 therefore
 15 stand
 15 said
 15 rest
 15 players
 15 other
 15 makes
 15 live
 15 last
 15 drink
 15 between
 15 better
 14 within
 14 state
 14 spirit
 14 something
 14 reason
 14 murder
 14 mark
 14 lady
 14 heard
 14 grace
 14 gone
 14 gentleman
 14 ever
 14 dost
 14 daughter
 14 bear
 14 answer
 13 word
 13 virtue
 13 thine
 13 sent
 13 sense
 13 purpose
 13 ourselves
 13 none
 13 haste
 13 grief
 13 grave
 13 goes
 13 gertrude
 13 friend
 13 form
 13 duty
 13 after
 12 while
 12 what's
 12 we'll
 12 voice
 12 together
 12 thought
 12 sleep
 12 same
 12 revenge
 12 remember
 12 please
 12 norway
 12 name
 12 myself
 12 mind
 12 madam
 12 hands
 12 further
 12 fortinbras
 12 fire
 12 bring
 12 being
 11 work
 11 wind
 11 villain
 11 twere
 11 thousand
 11 things
 11 stay
 11 right
 11 peace
 11 passion
 11 mean
 11 kind
 11 honest
 11 gentlemen
 11 full
 11 free
 11 foul
 11 fortune
 11 face
 11 each
 11 e'en
 11 doubt
 11 deed
 11 business
 11 best
 11 awhile
 10 uncle
 10 thanks
 10 seem
 10 second
 10 pyrrhus
 10 phrase
 10 news
 10 neither
 10 memory
 10 let's
 10 honour
 10 hell
 10 he's
 10 guildenstern
 10 ground
 10 given
 10 fine
 10 excellent
 10 every
 10 command
 10 aught
 10 alone
 10 alas
Note that this is a simple count and sort by exact word, and does not consolidate variations (such as drinking/drank/drunk). This analysis was based on the same source as my E-Text version, a full classic text but unspecified folio. An interesting observation from this is that Hamlet has over 32700 words, but only about 1700 unique.



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2003.10.01