public class Solution { public string MostCommonWord(string paragraph, string[] banned) { //"a, a, a, a, b,b,b,c, c" paragraph = paragraph.ToLower().Replace("!", " ").Replace("?", " ").Replace("'", " ").Replace(",", " ").Replace(";", " ").Replace(".", " "); var list = paragraph.Split(' '); var dic = new Dictionary(); foreach (var l in list) { var temp = l.Trim(); if (temp.Length == 0) { continue; } var filter = banned.Where(x => x == temp).ToList(); if (filter.Count > 0) { continue; } if (!dic.ContainsKey(temp)) { dic.Add(temp, 1); } else { dic[temp]++; } } var result = dic.OrderByDescending(x => x.Value).ToList().FirstOrDefault(); return result.Key; } }