Testing linguistic intuitions

[Richard]

I've been thinking of making a web-based 'fun' test on linguistics (remember, my definition of fun does not mean watching videos of cute cats), consisting of questions that can be answered through corpus analysis (the sorts of tasks I sometimes get you to do in my lessons).

For example:

1. Based on definitions in the Cambridge English Dictionary, can you rank the following meanings of 'would' in order of frequency in English
a. Opinion (I would think ...)
b. Preference (would like )
c. Conditional 'if'
d. Possibility (things you can imagine happening)
e. Request (Would you ...?)
f. Past habit (We would always wake up at ...)
g. Past of 'will'
h. Wish (would rather)

2. In the varieties of World Englishes, can you think of any words which are particularly associated with one or two varieties only?

If someone contributes another question, I'll give the answers to these (and that person can wait for another contribution before giving the answer to their question).

[Woravut]

Answer to Q.1
From high to low (e,f,b,c,g,h,a,d)

[Wannapa]

My answer: b, d, g, a, e, h, c, f

[sgtowns]

Completely wild guess with no reasoning: B E G F H D C A

[punjaporn]

My answer is
b, e, g, h, c, f, a, d

[Tepsuriwong]

b,e,g,d,a,c,f,h

[Jansompatu]

My guess is
b
e
g
c
h
f
a

[Wenwen Tian]

My answer: e,b,f,g,h,d,c,a

[Raj]

I guess i use 'would' in the following ranking:

1. b
2. a
3. c
4. e
5. f
6. h
7. d
8. g

[stevelouw]

I'd say:
b
e
c
h
a
g
d
f

In answer to question 2:
There are specific words in Australian (and New Zealand) English, like bikkies (biscuits), eskie (a portable drinks cooler), and ute (a pick up). As a South African, I have a whole bunch of words specific to SA English like bakkie, takkie and robot (to mean a traffic light). In Australia, a coupe (car) is pronounced /kuːp/ but in South Africa it's a /ˈkuːpeɪ/, probably following the same pronunciation difference between US and UK.