James Pennebaker

For you

and for us

and where we have been

and where we will go

Stop for a minute and think about your last conversation, e-mail, or text message.

But at the same time, you said much, much more. The precise words you used to communicate your message revealed more about you than you can imagine.

You, a, am, to, I, but, the, for, not …

Pronouns, articles, prepositions, and a handful of other small, stealthy words reveal parts of your personality, thinking style, emotional state, and connections with others.

These words, typically called function words, account for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of your vocabulary but make up almost 60 percent of the words you use.* Your brain is not wired to notice them but if you pay close attention, you will start to see their subtle power.

I, is used at far higher rates by followers than by leaders, truth-tellers than liars

And if you want to find your true love, compare the ways you use function words with that of your prospective partners.

isn’t about parts of speech at all. Rather, it’s about how these words serve as windows into people’s personalities and social connections.

My training and early research bridged the areas of social, personality, clinical, and health psychology. Only through some accidental discoveries did I even notice the existence of these stealth words.

At first, the study of function words was a side venture. But as I delved more deeply into the topic, I started making some unexpected connections to leadership, mental health, brain function, and other issues.