My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
Rob Long ·
Dec 17, 2010 at 9:27am
Google Labs has a new cool time-waster called Google NGram Viewer. Essentially, it's a search engine for the printed word from 1800 to 2000: you key in a few words, and the viewer instantly graphs the occurrence of those words over two centuries of indexed publications.
Here, for instance, is the NGram Viewer for these words: sin, righteous, and piety:
The word "sin," as you can see, has been on a steep decline since 1840.
Here's my favorite: the occurrence over the past two centuries of the words empower, multicultural, and homophobia:
It's addictive, and hilarious, and I'm sorry if, like me, your day is now shot. Go do a couple yourself, and post them here.
- Comment (63)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
Comments :
Dec '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
This is gold, Jerry...gold!
Finals? Who needs to study for finals when I can be NGram-ing words like "bootylicious", "Borking", and "Diddy"???
Dec '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
Here's one for "love, truth, and humility."
The silver lining in the "we care about love and truth much less than we used to" cloud is that we've remained consistently un-humble about it.
Off to NGram O'Reilly's "Words of the Day" since 1998.
Edited on Dec 17, 2010 at 9:53amAug '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
Here's one for "indomitable, imperturbable, insensitive".
As you see, indomitability and imperturbability have been on the decline for some time, but insensitivity is on the rise.
Dec '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
This is fascinating! I suggest using the words "Islam" and "Christianity". Then change the languages... it's amazing what a difference it is. I'm not sure if there's anything concrete to infer but there are a few observations:
1. English speaking publications (American and British) follow a similar trajectory and both used to talk about Christianity a lot more than Islam. Today Christianity has a slight edge.
2. China and Russia both have dramatic differences year to year of how much they talked about Christianity. Some years it's a record high, other years there is hardly a mention. Also, Islam doesn't seem to be discussed much.
3. The French, Spaniards and Germans discuss Islam a whole lot more than they do Christianity, the former barely getting a mention. This strikes me as quite odd. Especially the Spanish.
Does anyone have any historical light to shed on this? It seems remarkably interesting and I'd be curious to know more behind it. I'm quite ready to delve into some microfiche and read 200 years of international news papers!
Edited on Dec 17, 2010 at 9:56amAug '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
Also, engagements, romances, and affairs have all been on the decline, while relationships, at first less common than all the other three, have now skyrocketed.
Aug '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
It's wonderful to see that they have created a new tool to use the data set they acquired through the largest act of copytheft in history.
Whee!
Sep '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=ego,honor&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
'Ego" took off in '40 but peaked in '70s while 'Honor' is making a comeback...this is really fascinating.
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
R.J. Moeller: This is gold, Jerry...gold!
Finals? Who needs to study for finals when I can be NGram-ing words like "bootylicious", "Borking", and "Diddy"??? · Dec 17 at 9:35am
That's what we're here for, R. J. -- to undermine and disrupt your education.
Oct '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
I've been looking for a word that more or less has a horizontal graph. I wonder what that might be.
Meanwhile, have you seen the graph for Merry Christmas? Tis the season and its pretty interesting that there are multiple periods where apparently no one ever spoke the words. I find that suspicious.
Dec '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
Okay, I promise not to hog the comments here, but I had to do it:
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...Hope and Change!
Oct '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
This is a disturbing trend. Here's liberty. Here's rights. And democracy.
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
Completely predictable: global warming, climate change and greenhouse gases. For some reason environmental socialism became an animating scientific concern at about the dawn of the Reagan administration. And the good times keep on rolling.
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
Suffered a steep post-war decline, but the trends are hopeful.
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
Now this one puts a spring in my step.
Nov '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
Strangest graph I've seen.
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=midgit&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Edited on Dec 17, 2010 at 10:37amRe: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
A more recent history of doings in finance: private equity,leveraged buyout,initial public offering,hedge fund. And to calibrate against interest in making stuff instead of just speculating/owning/investing in it: Japanese management,kanban
Edited on Dec 17, 2010 at 10:44amOct '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
Recent presidents (W. and H.W. combined).
Aug '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
RPD: Strangest graph I've seen.
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=midgit&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3 · Dec 17 at 10:36am
As "midgit" is a misspelling of "midget", what you're seeing is something that happens with low frequency to begin with in printed material. No wonder it's all catawampus. You get some similar shapes with "squeemish" (for "squeamish").
In case anyone has been wondering, diddle has always been more common than twiddle (the two seem, very roughly, to track each other), and lewdness has declined steeply as erotica has increased.
Nov '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
It makes sense that you'd be the one to catch my misspelling. Whoops.
May '10
Re: My Day is Shot: Fun with Google NGrams
The data on "Aristotelian" are disconcerting.