word_counter.py

from datetime import datetime
import operator, string

table = string.maketrans("","")
thelist = {}

loop_condition = True
txt_file = open('gs2.txt')
word_list = [x for x in txt_file.read().decode('utf-8').split()]
# Translate removes punctuation 
# Should add a .undercase 04APR2013
word_list_dup = [
    str(word).translate(table, string.punctuation) for word in word_list]
word_list_nodup = set(word_list_dup)

print "Starting find at", str(datetime.now())
word_gen = (item for item in word_list_nodup)
cur_word = word_gen.next()
# For displaying progress
length = len(word_list_nodup)
counter = 0
while loop_condition:
    try:
        thelist.update({'%s' % cur_word: word_list_dup.count(cur_word)})
        cur_word = word_gen.next()
        counter += 1
        if counter % 1000 == 0:
            print '%s out of %s' % (counter, length)
    except StopIteration:
        loop_condition = False
print "Finished find at", str(datetime.now())
sorted_items = sorted(thelist.iteritems(), key=operator.itemgetter(1))
sorted_items.reverse()
with open('output.txt', 'w') as d:
    for item in sorted_items:
        d.write(str(item[0].encode('utf-8')) + ' ' + str(item[1]) + '\n')

Ran with a text file of the bible in about 5 minutes