Interesting Ngrams: January 2013

30 January 2013

Thanks for your time

I was watching a film set in 1985 and a character said "Thanks for your time"
and that seemed to jar. The Ngram shows that the expression was around
then but got lot bigger later.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Thanks+for+your+time&year_start=1930&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation is a portmanteau of
stagnation and inflation, a term used in economics to describe a situation
where an inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows down, and
unemployment remains steadily high. It raises a dilemma for economic policy
since actions designed to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment, and
vice versa.

The term is generally attributed to British politician Iain Macleod, who coined
the phrase in his speech to Parliament in 1965.

However it too a few years to catch on, peaking around 1980 and currently in
long-term decline.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=stagflation&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

29 January 2013

Big Bang

A theory about how the Universe began.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Big+Bang&year_start=1940&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=1&share=

Browser wars

The rise and fall of some popular web browsers
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Internet+Explorer%2CNetscape%2CFirefox&year_start=1990&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=1&share=

Cedric

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedric tells us that "Cedric" is a male given name
invented by Walter Scott in the 1819 novel Ivanhoe, based on Cerdic, the
name of a 6th-century Saxon king. This chart seems to back that up.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Cedric&year_start=1750&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

Floppy Disk

A once important computer item is now well past its prime
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=floppy+disk&year_start=1950&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

Third Sector

Sometimes called the Voluntary Sector or non-profit, the term seems to be a
child of the 1970s. The idea itself rather than the term is hundreds, possibly
thousands of years old.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Sector
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Third+Sector&year_start=1950&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

Cancer Awareness

Breast Cancer Awareness has always been bigger than Prostate Cancer
Awareness. Breast Cancer does kill slightly more people than Prostate
Cancer.

Nearly all the Breast Cancer victims are women. All of the Prostate Cancer
victims are men.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=breast+cancer+awareness%2Cprostate+cancer+awareness&year_start=1970&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

27 January 2013

Have a nice day

This common way of saying "Goodbye" has grown steadily since around
1970
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Have+a+nice+day&year_start=1950&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

25 January 2013

phone or telephone?

They started writing about this technology shortly after the first patent in 1876
but it took about 30 years for the abbreviation "phone" to get started and until
1990 before it overtook "telephone"
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=telephone%2Cphone&year_start=1868&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=2&share=

Mental handicap and mentally subnormal

Nowadays, these two expressions are considered unacceptable. Notice their
slow rise, brief peak and then fall.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=mental+handicap%2Cmentally+subnormal&year_start=1940&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=2&share=

urban legend

Urban legends got their start around 1980 or is THAT an urban legend itself?
:-)
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=urban+legend&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=2&share=

broadband

Perhaps older than I thought.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=broadband&year_start=1938&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

computer

Notice the steep rise 1980-1985 and the decline after 2003.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=computer&year_start=1938&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

billion

Apart from a few anomalies hundreds of years ago, this large number only got
going around 1900
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=billion&year_start=1500&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

codpiece

A friend mentioned this antique clothing item on Facebook so I decided to
"research" it a little
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=codpiece&year_start=1500&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

24 January 2013

Some test data

This chart is for several recent year numbers. The area on the left is what
you'd expect. Growing mentions as the year approaches and continuing to
rise to a peak a couple of years later when (for example) a book about events
in 1993 actually gets written and published. It's the right-hand side that bothers
me. Notice the kinks at 2005 and 2007. After these points, it looks like
references to all 8 of the years started a simultaneous decline???
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=1990%2C1991%2C1992%2C1993%2C1994%2C1995%2C1996%2C1997&year_start=1990&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

Ceroc - several meanings

Ceroc is a partner dance best described as a fusion of Salsa and Jive, but
without the complicated footwork. According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceroc#History_of_Ceroc it got started in 1980 but
the Ngram engine shows a BIG written history for the word back in the 1950s
and 60s.

The answer is here https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Ceroc
%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1950,cd_max:1959&lr=lang_en where Ceroc
seems to have been "an extremely thin and flexible ceramic insulation
deposited on copper wire".

Wikipedia doesn't seem to know that.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Ceroc&year_start=1930&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

meteoric rise

Bit of an oxymoron, meteors don't generally rise, they fall. Didn't stop the
expression catching on though from around 1900

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=meteoric+rise&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

re-imagined

I think I first heard "re-imagined" in one of those Orange cinema adverts where
Mr Dresden insists that a film isn't a re-make, it's re-imagined. It's older than
that though. There were a few "trailers" right back into the 19th century before
the breakthrough and meteoric rise starting around 1990.

PS: "meteoric rise" is a bit of an oxymoron�.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=re-imagined&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

UK/US English

Is it center or center?
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=centre%2Ccenter&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

Popularity of various drugs

Some more legal than others.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Valium%2CProzac%2CHeroin&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

National Park

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park#History tells us that in 1872,
Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first truly national
park. It look like this inspired book writers immediately and there's been fairly
steady growth up until 2000 (There was a bit of a dip for the Second World
War) After 2000 there's a bit of a decline - and that's true of several Ngrams
I've tried. I'm on the lookout for an explanation�.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=National+Park&year_start=1850&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

Pennine Way

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennine_Way this was proposed in
1935 but wasn't completed until 30 years later. Completion more than doubled
the book writing and that continues
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Pennine+Way&year_start=1930&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

The Environment

This got started in earnest around 197 and got a boost around 1990. There's
been some decline in interest after 2002
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Environment&year_start=1940&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

Bristol Brabazon

The Bristol Type 167 Brabazon was a large propeller-driven airliner. The
project was launched in 1943, flown in 1949 and the single prototype was
scrapped in 1953. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Brabazon

Quite a lot was written in the very early stages of the project and there was
another peak around launch time. Interest waned fairly quickly with the
scrapping but didn't die entirely
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Bristol+Brabazon&year_start=1940&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=

23 January 2013

Boys names

This one is interesting because it suggests a problem with the underlying
data. The graphs share some peaks with each other, EG, around 1954. This
suggests that all four names got extra mentions in those years while at least
three got less in 1959. I wonder if 1954 was a good year for fiction (that might
be expected to have had people's names)

Entrepreneur

The word seems to date from around 1880 and has grown fairly steadilly
since.

Remember "Acid Rain"?

A big environmental issue peaking around 1992 but now fading away.

Battenburg Cake

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battenburg_cake was invented in
1884 but no one seems to have written about it until the 1970s. I'm sure I first ate
it in the 1960s!

Tolkien

It was some years after his death in 1971 that there was the first major peak in
writing about him. The seond peak corresponds with the release of Peter
Jackson's live action The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Various Versions of Microsoft Windows

All peak around product launch time.

Email, the Web and FTP

Email and the Web match each other quite closely although email does get
an earlier start.

The lesser known FTP is a "traditional" way for files to be moved around and
used to be bigger than the Web. As you can see, its decline is slow.

More recently, writing about all three has started to decline.

Margaret Thatcher

She came to power in 1979 but book mentions grew quite slowly peaking just
after 1990 when she stepped down. Her decline has been quite slow.

(The small peak around 1975 matches her appointment as Leader of the
Conservative Party)

HIV/AIDS

This disease only came to notice after around 1985