Google Ngram Viewer...

by **Stephen Morgan** » Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:40 am

Relates how often certain words appear in books in different years in history. Could be a useful tool for the Keyword Kops.

Case sensitive, as you see.

That isn't the result I expected at all for that. "Black" is to generic.

Not what I was expecting.

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/

by **JackRiddler** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 12:21 am

Morgan's last two: very interesting, I'm resisting the impulse to start essays. For example I hypothesize that free enterprise went off the scale in the 30s and 40s because propaganda pumping it to the skies was produced to counteract the loss of faith in capitalism and help persuade people not to Go Left after the war.

Hmmmm... both going down?

No surprise!

Zombies surpassed werewolves a bit earlier than I would have thought.

by **JackRiddler** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 12:41 am

Addictive.

The Health of the State

The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television.

The Rise of Girls

Revised all to an end point in 2000, because after that the graphs usually have suspicious dips.(2005 for for movies/TV/Internet.) They may not have incorporated a representative sample from the recent period.

by **Nordic** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 4:44 am

Is this for real?

I just did communist, terrorist.

Which REALLY begs to have results post 2000.

This is really fascinating.

by **Stephen Morgan** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 10:02 am

JackRiddler wrote:
Hmmmm... both going down?

Once a war is over both sides reduce their expenditure on ammunition.

by **jingofever** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 3:50 pm

Somebody needs to recalculate the ten most common words in the English language.

by **jingofever** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 5:30 pm

Nordic wrote:I just did communist, terrorist.

Which REALLY begs to have results post 2000.

Up to 2008, in American English.

by **Laodicean** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 8:35 pm

by **Allegro** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 3:07 am

by **Allegro** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 3:13 am

Yeah, Bowie = David, who has apparently slightly over run a favored piano composer, Johannes Brahms.

What to do? What to do?

by **Allegro** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 3:14 am

by **compared2what?** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 4:11 am

Allegro wrote:

Sure. But...

...which in the American English corpus really means Protestantism of some sort, in all likelihood. The Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Churches are often singled out as discrete entities here. (Because they're very clearly institutionally autonomous and non-native at the top of the hierarchy, would be my guess.) But in most non-special-focus contexts, everything else is usually just plain old "Christianity," for verbal reference purposes.

by **compared2what?** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 4:24 am

Totally addictive.

Also, John was wrong. Or he would have been if he had meant it literally, anyway.

by **Stephen Morgan** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 7:15 am

Allegro wrote:

by **JackRiddler** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 12:30 pm

Stephen Morgan wrote:
JackRiddler wrote:
Hmmmm... both going down?

Once a war is over both sides reduce their expenditure on ammunition.

it also confirms what I noticed in the late 80s and 90s - look at that plateau for the blue. During the triumphalist stage, it was suddenly acceptable and common to call the system capitalism, whereas until then it was considered a suspect word (although it is definitely the most accurate word).