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Mr. Tom Posted 8 years ago
Vocabulary

Tell off, reprimand, rebuke

Hi

Could you please tell me if I can trust the N-grams here? I was under the impression that tell off is the most common -- or, at least, reprimand is commoner than rebuke.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=rebuke%2Creprimand%2C+tell+off&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Crebuke%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Creprimand%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ctell%20off%3B%2Cc0

Thanks,

Tom

  

Top answer

Google ngrams show the frequency of words and phrases in books. "Tell off" is very informal speech, so is not likely to occur very often in formal writing. Here is a screen shot of the frequency of "tell off" in the American Corpus.

— AlpheccaStars

  • Google ngrams show the frequency of words and phrases in books.
  • "Tell off" is very informal speech, so is not likely to occur very often in formal writing.
  • Here is a screen shot of the frequency of "tell off" in the American Corpus.
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1 Answers
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Google ngrams show the frequency of words and phrases in books. "Tell off" is very informal speech, so is not likely to occur very often in formal writing.

Here is a screen shot of the frequency of "tell off" in the American Corpus.

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