The Most Meaningful Word

I saw this link on Facebook today and thought I would share.

The Most Meaningful Word

Guess which word in the English language has more meanings than any other word.

That's right. It's those three little letters that rhyme with fun: the word "run."

If you don't believe me, look it up. According to the big fat Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, the word "run" has 179 meanings. That's way more than "take" (124 meanings), "break" (122), "turn" (122), "go" (98), "play" (94), and every other word.

There is of course meaning number one: "to go quickly by moving the legs more rapidly than at a walk and in such a manner that in each step all or both feet are off the ground." But what about the other 178? Why, of all the words in the language, is "run" the most meaning-full?

It probably has a lot to do with spatial metaphors. According to Harvard word nerd, Stephen Pinker, people tend to describe events in terms of movement through space, even when the event isn't actually located in space. We gocrazy. We fall in love. We move a meeting from Monday to Tuesday. And when something moves through metaphoric space quickly (more rapidly than at a walk), it runs.

Rivers run. Candidates run. So do colors, computer programs, salmon, and stockings.

Then there are the idiomatic meanings. If you run across a woman who runs around, she might run out on her husband and run off with you–though in the long run, you're likely to run out of gas, feel run down, and (dare I say?) get the runs.

I thought this was interesting. The more I listen the more I realize that the word run/ran, etc. is in A LOT of music out there. I get excited every time I "discover" it when I hadn't noticed it before. I'm definitely a running nerd.