As others have noted, the surprising part is that it follows a particular ~1/<ranking> type pattern rather than being, say, linear or something.
An interesting application is looking at untranslated works -- for example while they can't translate the Voynich Manuscript, it does follow the distribution, so it is probably not just random scribbling (of course, this doesn't rule out the likely options of cypher or constructed language).
An interesting application is looking at untranslated works -- for example while they can't translate the Voynich Manuscript, it does follow the distribution, so it is probably not just random scribbling (of course, this doesn't rule out the likely options of cypher or constructed language).