Quick script for counting up most common words in a text, ignoring very common words

common.txt

the
be
am
are
is
was
were
been
to
of
and
a
in
that
have
has
had
I
it
for
not
on
with
he
as
you
do
does
did
at
this
but
his
by
from
they
we
say
says
said
her
she
or
an
will
my
one
all
would
there
their
what
so
up
out
if
about
who
get
gets
got
which
where
how
go
me
when
make
makes
made
can
like
likes
liked
time
no
just
him
know
knew
knows
take
takes
took
people
into
year
your
good
some
could
them
see
sees
saw
other
than
then
now
look
looks
looked
only
come
comes
came
its
over
think
thinks
thought
also
back
after
use
uses
used
two
our
work
works
worked
first
well
way
even
new
want
wants
wanted
because
any
these
give
gives
gave
day
most
us
may
more
such
should
very
those
same
must

jasper.py

from collections import Counter
import string

def remove_punctuation(word):
  return word.translate(string.maketrans("",""), string.punctuation)

# Read in list of common words in lowercase.

common_words = [word.lower() for word in open('common.txt').read().splitlines()]

# read in file contents and add words to list. Strip punctuation and change
# to lowercase first.

lines = open('big.txt').read().splitlines()

words = []
for line in lines:
  for word in line.split():
    words.append(remove_punctuation(word).lower())
    
# Use a Counter to find the most common words that aren't in the common_words
# list.

cnt = Counter(words)

for word in common_words:
  cnt[word] = 0

print cnt.most_common(10)