Personal pronouns like “I” and “you” are among the most common words in the English language—but that doesn’t mean they occur equally often in all kinds of texts. “If you think about it, you wouldn’t really expect to find any personal pronouns in cooking recipes,” says Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer, professor of English and digital linguistics at Chemnitz University of Technology.
Why cooking recipes are surprisingly personal—and have been so for more than 160 years
