Another obvious characteristic of Dylan's lyrical vocabulary is the absence of four-letter words. Perhaps a product of a generation, or an indication of his upbringing, in comparison to The Rolling Stone Top 500, Dylan uses far fewer words of a colourful nature. Here is the breakdown with Dylan's word count on the left, RS500's on the right:

(*)damn       8       11
fuck(*)         0       26

Oh, yes, it is you. Dylan has several key words that appear over and again throughout his oeuvre, "ain't" and "babe" being two of the most common. The vocabulary frequencies support this simple observation. In Dylan's officially released lyrics, he uses "babe" 88 (.08%) times and "ain't" a staggering 369 (.3%). In comparison, "babe" is found 58 (.05%) times in The Rolling Stone's Top 500, "ain't" a mere 168 (.1%).

The balance is reversed, however, if we look at "baby". To the RS500's 689 (.6%) times, Dylan only uses the word 253 (.3%) times. It ain't me, baby.