A collaboration between Google
and Harvard University lets anyone plunder a slice of the search
giant's enormous back catalogue of books, to find how the
popularity of words and phrases has dipped and spiked between 1800
Like a linguistic genome, analysts can sift through five million books, and two
centuries of text to trace their etymological histories. That's
about a third of Google's full archive, and four percent of all
books ever published.
And its not just about poking around with the pre-internet
usages of common 21st Century jargon -- Mr Twitter was a character
in a 1924 Life Magazine story, and Barney Google was a comic book
hero in 1942.
The so-called Ngram
Viewer can also be used to track trends, as well as words.
Researchers at Harvard looked at the increasing use of the word "enemy" as nations
faced off in warfare, the juxtaposition of the simple sausage's
decline against the recent rise of the exotic sushi, and a general
wane in words like "God" and "religion".
Plus, celebrities are getting younger but enjoy fame for
less time, according to bumper treasure trove of written words. In
1800, luminaries were on average 43 before they received their fame
and became the subject of texts and books. By 1950, our famous folk
just 29 years old. That's a trend that can be extrapolated even
into today: our most notable celeb of 2010 is a squeaky voiced, 16 year old Canadian.
It's also estimated that about 8,500 new words enter the
English language every year, from 1950 to 2000, fuelling a 70
percent growth from 597,000 to 1,022,000. They don't necessarily
make their way into formalised dictionaries though: about half of
them have avoided Merriam Webster's grip.
Try it yourself at