Many thanks to those who replied. I tried the shortest, simplest choice: l = map (None, mydict.values (), mydict.keys ()) l.sort () l.reverse () then added the following to get one count, word1, word2 tuple on each line: for i in range(len(l)): print l[i] Works like a charm! VERY helpful newgroup, it is! Cheers, Rob Lake rbl at hal.cwru.edu