In a “Looking at Language” column I remember by Richard Lederer, he talked about the most-often-used noun in the English language. You might wonder how much spare time someone must have in order to come up with a procedure for counting the number of times a certain English noun is used. Anyway, as it turns out, a lot of time was spent in order to determine that the noun “time” is the most-often-used noun in our language.

The list of the language’s most-often used words, according to Lederer’s column, was determined by the folks at the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, who obviously have lots of time to spare. The dictionary relied on what is called the Oxford English Corpus, which, according to Lederer, is a research project about English in the 21st century.

In case you’re wondering, Richard Lederer is not someone with too much time on his hands. He’s a language guy who writes a syndicated column on the subject of language. He has also written 30 books on language, including “Anguished English,” Get Thee to a Punnery” and “A Man of My Words.”

The column got me to thinking about our use of language in Maine and how Down East English – the dialect I’m most familiar with – will fare in this 21st century. What would a list of the words most often used in Down East Maine look like? OK, I agree that some of those words can’t be printed in this wholesome family publication. We’ll just leave those aside.

Most would agree that “ayuh” would have to top any list of popular Down East words. When you hear “aloha,” you think of Hawaii; when you hear “shalom,” you think of Israel; when you hear a crude expletive, you assume there’s a Massachusetts driver in the vicinity. In the same way, when you hear “ayuh,” you think Down East.

Although many people in other linguistic jurisdictions have attempted to use that word correctly, at this time, none has been able to do it right.

While we’re talking about “ayuh,” we should mention that it is sometimes confused with the phrase “Maine ayuh,” which refers to the sweet-smelling stuff we get to breathe everyday. It’s also sometimes confused with “ayuh-line,” which refers to the state highway that runs between Brewer and Calais.

Speaking of Calais (pronounced cah-liss), don’t ever make the mistake of asking a Down Easter if you’re on the road to “kah-LAY,” because he or she will pretend to have no idea what you’re talking about. We can’t even count the number of out-of-staters who’ve stopped on Route 1 somewhere around Ellsworth and asked someone, “Is this the road to cah-LAY?,” and were greeted with a blank stare.

Other popular Down East words that would have to appear on any “most popular” list would have to include bondo, dite, daow, hawd, tad, cunnin’, I’talian, jeezly, pucker brush and tray-luh.

I don’t know which is more used than the other. That’s up to someone with more expertise – and certainly more time – to determine.

If you have any words to add to the collection, just e-mail me.

You might also want to check out my book on the subject, “The Maine Dictionary,” a humorous look at Maine words and phrases by Commonwealth Editions. I assume it’s still in print because I just got a royalty check from Commonwealth a few weeks ago.

John McDonald is the author of five books on Maine, including “John McDonald’s Maine Trivia: A User’s Guide to Useless Information.” Contact him at mainestoryteller@yahoo.com.