Python 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Feb 11 2010, 00:51:29) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> word_list = ['Jellicle', 'Cats', 'are', 'black', 'and', 'white,', 'Jellicle', 'Cats', 'are', 'rather', 'small;', 'Jellicle', 'Cats', 'are', 'merry', 'and', 'bright,', 'And', 'pleasant', 'to', 'hear', 'when', 'they', 'caterwaul.', 'Jellicle', 'Cats', 'have', 'cheerful', 'faces,', 'Jellicle', 'Cats', 'have', 'bright', 'black', 'eyes;', 'They', 'like', 'to', 'practise', 'their', 'airs', 'and', 'graces', 'And', 'wait', 'for', 'the', 'Jellicle', 'Moon', 'to', 'rise.', '']
>>> word_counter = {}
>>> for word in word_list:
...     if word in word_counter:
...         word_counter[word] += 1
...     else:
...         word_counter[word] = 1
... 
>>> popular_words = sorted(word_counter, key = word_counter.get, reverse = True)
>>> 
>>> top_3 = popular_words[:3]
>>> 
>>> top_3
['Jellicle', 'Cats', 'and']




## OR .....



>>> l = ['Jellicle', 'Cats', 'are', 'black', 'and', 'white,', 'Jellicle', 'Cats', 'are', 'rather', 'small;', 'Jellicle', 'Cats', 'are', 'merry', 'and', 'bright,', 'And', 'pleasant', 'to', 'hear', 'when', 'they', 'caterwaul.', 'Jellicle', 'Cats', 'have', 'cheerful', 'faces,', 'Jellicle', 'Cats', 'have', 'bright', 'black', 'eyes;', 'They', 'like', 'to', 'practise', 'their', 'airs', 'and', 'graces', 'And', 'wait', 'for', 'the', 'Jellicle', 'Moon', 'to', 'rise.', '']
>>> counter = {}
>>> for i in l: counter[i] = counter.get(i, 0) + 1
... 
>>> counter
{'and': 3, '': 1, 'merry': 1, 'rise.': 1, 'small;': 1, 'Moon': 1, 'cheerful': 1, 'bright': 1, 'Cats': 5, 'are': 3, 'have': 2, 'bright,': 1, 'for': 1, 'their': 1, 'rather': 1, 'when': 1, 'to': 3, 'airs': 1, 'black': 2, 'They': 1, 'practise': 1, 'caterwaul.': 1, 'pleasant': 1, 'hear': 1, 'they': 1, 'white,': 1, 'wait': 1, 'And': 2, 'like': 1, 'Jellicle': 6, 'eyes;': 1, 'the': 1, 'faces,': 1, 'graces': 1}
>>> sorted([ (freq,word) for word, freq in counter.items() ], reverse=True)[:3]
[(6, 'Jellicle'), (5, 'Cats'), (3, 'to')]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3594514/how-to-find-most-common-elements-of-a-list

Counting elements in a list

list

Python