Google NGram

Saturday, December 18th, 2010

With Google’s new tool Ngram Viewer, you can visualise the rise and fall of concepts across 5 million books and 500 years!

FUN!

I’ve boshed out a few quick experiments. Got any more?

frank

I’m very disappointed.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ngram%2C+diagram&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Willie

I had run the ngram on the drugs previously, one issue is Heroin is actually a brand name, try it with opium and see the contrast.

Great site, went out and bought the book off the back of finding it.

Willie
- jm
  
  Another interesting note on the drugs chart. Compare British English to American English. Seems cocaine was far more popular in American English than British English in the Victorian era. Contemporary use of heroin between the two is also interesting.
boen_robot

Fun vs. Job

Apparently, in 18th century, having fun was popular, in 19th, there was an equilibrium of sorts between having fun and having jobs, and from 20th century on we have become more interested in having jobs then having fun (that, or we’ve simply moved the fun in other media). No wonder books are not considered fun in this day and age – they don’t even talk about fun :-D .
Tijn Schmits

I want my mommy!

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=mother%2Cfather%2Cson%2Cdaughter&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

I can spend hours thinking of interesting relations between words, entering them in Google Ngram, and drawing some pseudo-historical/philosophical conclusions. Information is beautiful.
Sophie

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=philosophy%2Cpolitics&year_start=1700&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Philosophy and politics have interesting crossovers.
SImon

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=work%2Clife&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Ed

Here’s an interesting one, good news in the last few years http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=depression%2Chappiness%2Csadness&year_start=1700&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
- Antony
  
  heehee, I always thought the 1800s looked like fun!
Niko

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=horse%2Cmotor&year_start=1776&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=2 Horse v Motor
Antony

Perhaps not surprising, but:

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=war%2Cpeace&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Summer

Apparently vaginas, babies and women’s health are not that related…

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=vagina%2Cbaby%2Cwomen%27s+health%2C+abortion&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
http://slippyd.com Slipp Douglas

The rise and fall of Bill Gates: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Bill+Gates%2CSteve+Jobs&year_start=1970&year_end=2012&corpus=0&smoothing=3

(Too bad it goes only up to 2008.)
http://www.thejoyofseex.co.uk Daniel Seex

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=win%2Close&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

WIN/LOSE

What happened in 1790?! Did people suddenly get really pessimistic?
Kelly

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=America%2CUnited+States%2CEngland%2C+Britain&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Aaron

I thought the instances of the colours used in the NGram charts might be interesting. I found a bizarre fluctuation for yellow around the 1803-1810 mark where it spiked dramatically. Have looked to see if this coincided with a yellow fever outbreak but it seems not. Any ideas?

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=blue%2Cred%2Cgreen%2Cyellow&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=6&smoothing=3
Tillois

History meets big data:
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=peace%2Cwar&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=2
Keith

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=tea%2C+coffee&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Keith

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=glass%2Cwood%2Csteel%2Crubber&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Keith

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=concept%2Cmanufacture%2Cdesign%2Ctest&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Daniel

Here’s some fun ones – I started with the STEAM fields. Then I broke down science and art into some of their major fields. I started each graph in 1700, and used all lower case letters.

science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics
http://goo.gl/hmN0f

The sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, botany, meteorology
http://goo.gl/4ESd9

The arts: literature, poetry, sculpture, painting, theater, dance, music
http://goo.gl/nqdEm
thunnis van oort

Rise & fall of socialism?

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=capitalist%2Csocialist&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

Google NGram

Tags —

Related