Wordgasms

If you haven't spent too many hours playing with Ngram yet, you are missing out. The tool mines the scanned pages of Google Books' increasingly massive Alexandrian library and spits out word or phrase frequencies upon command. To say this is a boon to armchair cultural critics is an understatement. (If you happen to be in the field of historical linguistics, I'd be curious to know if the sample pool here is large enough to make these charts scientifically valid.)

Here are my discoveries so far:

The first instinct of most people is to play with "versus" charts.

Nothing shocking there. The most interesting "versus" charts think around the central battles of our age to find the words that best encapsulate popular sentiment and preoccupation.

That's a swift and abrupt cross in the 1910s, and fairly accurately sums up the reduction of adulthood in the 20th century. It appears that a similarly swift cross may happen again within a decade. Time will tell. Meanwhile, how to best illustrate the departure of religion from the everyday concern of the Anglosphere?

It's fascinating that the cross happens at almost the exact same year as the previous chart. Also, it seems like the English-speaking world was really keen on figuring out the whole "why, God, why?" thing in the 19th century. World Wars kind of killed that.

There were some word charts where I was sure I'd know what they'd look like, and I turned out to be wrong. Quick: picture a chart of the word frequency for the various media that were invented in the 20th century. Did it look like this?

Everything looks about right except for the fact that radio continues to be more frequently written about than movies. (Of course, the word "radio" could be used in all sorts of scientific contexts, which probably contributes to its staying power relative to that thing you only listen to in the car.)

Here's one to discuss over a bong:

The word 'dude' was used as frequently in the 1740s as it was in the early 1960s. Historians might want to revise their notions on the origins of hippie culture.

This one's for all those newspaper columnists who deride the easy frequency with which we hail genius in these modern times. Naturally, the meaning of 'genius' has shifted from the 1700s, in which it had several shades of meaning as an all-purpose noun. Today, it's more of an exclamation or an awarded title. 

What an awesome little two-step. I didn't expect Texas to ever eclipse Mexico (which, as a sovereign nation, has more cause to be written about as an entity), but the nearly parallel development of interest in both political bodies since their inception is noteworthy.

This chart is just full of historic markers and cultural preoccupations. I'm guessing Alaska has run away from Hawaii again since 2008 (the last year for which Ngram has calculations) ... which is a fascination all by itself. The home of the vanquished Vice Presidential candidate probably carries a greater profile since the election than the birthplace of the elected President!

Influence is a funny thing. Shakes has great staying power, but what does it mean that Hitler does, too?

In late-breaking news, "okay" has finally passed "OK" as the most common spelling of that age-old Americanism.

Watch discussion of slavery fall off a cliff after the Civil War, as if abolishing it made the effects disappear as well.

The other word the Civil War did irreparable damage to? Weirdly, it's 'thine'.

A few Christmas-themed charts. For starters, I always thought of 'humbug' as a one-story word that blipped into existence with "A Christmas Carol" and was kept on life support through repetitions of Dickens ever since. The real history appears to be much more complicated. For reference, Scrooge's epithet was first published in 1843, right at the bottom of that first major trough. It apparently reached the heights of usage during the Civil War (what a weird time for language) and has been trailing ever since ... until this millennium? What are we scowling 'humbug' at?

And here's one you won't want to explain to your kids: the invention of a saint.

You can almost pinpoint Santa's birthday in Victorian treacle. Finally, the weirdest winter chart has to do with snow, which was almost universally ignored in favor of rain until, suddenly, it wasn't.

What does this mean? Does it reflect the rise of American literature (in terms of volume measured against British literature)? Is there a correlation to weather patterns? Was snow insufficiently moody for 18th century readers? And why did it cross back under at the same time that children and clothes made their leap forward? 

Last but not least, one that's kind of in bad taste. (Keep in mind that Ngram is case-sensitive, so these are the actual words, not the names.)

Who knew caviar had such spikes in popularity?