Bradbury also used other spice words such as vanilla, spearmint, licorice and nutmeg at a higher rate than the authors above combined. Obviously every author used function words such as “the” and “from” at a high rate, and basic adjectives like “big” or “fast”, but cinnamon words are the words that each author uses disproportionately compared with other writers. Nabokov used the word “mauve” 44 times as often as one would expect, which makes perfect sense in hindsight. Sometimes, if you look at an author’s cinnamon words, you can already hear their voice. At others, you get a sense of the author’s tone through their most uniquely used words.

Source: The Guardian March 10, 2017 09:56 UTC