While I promise that I’m not beginning big project on apostrophes, I thought that my Word Fans would like to know that there are 3006 of them in The Hobbit.

I find 96,134 words in the work, 6320 distinct words, and 2707 of these occur only once. I am ready to bet that a 42% distinct word count is … unusual.

For examples of words used only once which are not already in our concordance – therefore are common – here’s the challenge I shall accept for the letter A. (AROUND!!! Wow!)

• accomplished
• active
• advantage
• affect
• affection
• afford
• aground
• alliances
• amount
• ample
• anyhow
• apologetically
• appealed
• appointed
• appreciatively
• around
• array
• arts
• assembled
• attend
• aye