+
−# Performance note: I benchmarked this code using a set instead of
+
−# a list for the stopwords and was surprised to find that the list
+
−# performed /better/ than the set - maybe because it's only a small
+
−# list.
+
−
+
−stopwords = '''
+
−i
+
−a
+
−an
+
−are
+
−as
+
−at
+
−be
+
−by
+
−for
+
−from
+
−how
+
−in
+
−is
+
−it
+
−of
+
−on
+
−or
+
−that
+
−the
+
−this
+
−to
+
−was
+
−what
+
−when
+
−where
+
−'''.split()
+
−
+
−def strip_stopwords(sentence):
+
−    "Removes stopwords - also normalizes whitespace"
+
−    words = sentence.split()
+
−    sentence = []
+
−    for word in words:
+
−        if word.lower() not in stopwords:
+
−            sentence.append(word)
+
−    return u' '.join(sentence)
+
−