Course:COGS200/2017W1/NGramAssignment/ShirleyLiu

Compare Words

Eskimo or Inuit?

The above collective variables describe the change in frequency of use between "Eskimo" and "Inuit" in recent history.

Before the 1990s, the term "Eskimo" was the popular state; it was more widely used in English literature as a blanket term to describe the Indigenous peoples living in in the North (ie: Alaska, Canada, Greenland). "Eskimo" was the label that colonists had assigned to them.

In the 1970s, the Inuit in Canada started speaking out and informing the public that "Eskimo" was considered derogatory, and they should have the right to name themselves. This attractor began the decrease of the use of "Eskimo", and is when the name "Inuit" starting rising in popularity. Its use continued to rise and surpass "Eskimo" in the 1990s. Currently, "Inuit" is the more widely accepted term, while the use of "Eskimo" is still falling.

Wildcard Search

What's your biggest fear?

The above collective variables describe the change in the frequency of written words in English to come after "fear of the" throughout history.

In the 1800s and early 1900s, "fear of the Lord" was the most popular state, far surpassing all others. However, in the mid-1800s it was already on the decline, likely due to the increasing popularity of Atheism and increased interaction between people of differing religions. This possible attractor brought down the frequency of "fear of the Lord" so much that between 1970 and 2000, it was momentarily ranked lower than "fear of the unknown", which has been steadily on the rise since the 1900s.

Some interesting observations:

• "fear of the consequences" stayed relatively constant and popular throughout history
• "fear of the future" peaked a little bit in the early 1940s, possibly influenced by World War II
• "fear of the Jews" and "fear of the enemy" has decreased in frequency since the 1900s
• "fear of the dark" has increased in frequency since the 1900s, possibly due to the widespread use of electricity and continuous and reliable sources of lighting

Inflection Search

How about dying?

The above collective variables describe the change in frequency of use between the different inflections of the verb "die".

In the 1800s to early 1900s, the use of "die" vs. "died" was quite steady - "died" was always used more frequently than "die", since life expectancy was shorter back then and medicine was not as advanced. Thus, people were often dead before they were able to be written about.

However, this dynamic all changed in the 1930s. Suddenly, the use of "die" started rising, and "died" started falling. Very quickly, "die" surpassed "died' in frequency. A possible attractor to this change could be the period of the Great Depression. So many people lost everything they owned, so the writing in that period of time must have been bleak. The idea of dying is, unfortunately, much more attractive in such a time.

From that change forwards, "die" has been more popular than "died. Perhaps in this modern age, while fewer people die, more people think about dying.

Part-of-Speech Tags

What the f*ck?

Disclaimer: A classmate of mine asked me to try this as a joke, but the results were interesting enough for me to include it in this assignment.

The above collective variables describe the change in frequency of the different uses of the word "fuck" in a sentence.

As expected, the use of the word "fuck" was almost non-existent before the 1950s. The attractor to it's quick rise to popularity is that "fuck" is an increasingly common piece of modern slang, Also, as expected, it is most commonly used as a noun and a verb, and almost never as any other part of speech.

Contrary to expectation, "fuck" has been recorded in astoundingly high frequencies from the 1600s to the 1800s. However, these elevated states can be easily explained by the shape of the letters "s" and "f" in Old English text. The lowercase letter "s" was written in a way that looked almost identical to the lowercase letter "f" in those times, resulting in them being interpreted as "f" when the pages were scanned into the electronic records. Thus, the word "fuck" was likely the word "suck" all along, which makes sense because it was most frequently recorded as a verb ("to suck") and less frequently as a noun ("the suck" eg: of milk).

General Parts of Speech

Who do we care about?

The above collective variables describe the change in frequency of the use of different pronouns in written English throughout history.

Before the 1960s, the use of the "I" and "you" pronouns were not as frequent. After the 1960s, the use of "I" became more and more popular, leading its use to an increasingly higher state. It is now the most frequently used pronoun, and its use continues to rise. Perhaps this is due to the increase of autobiographies written, or the attractor could just be the overall competitive drive of our society that makes us put ourselves first. The use of "you" also increased drastically after the 1960s. The popularization of self-help books as other books written in the second person, as well as the use of "you" synonymously to "you all", may be possible attractors for such increase.

The use of "his" and "he" have always been popular throughout history, though they also were on a steady decline. However, since the year 2000, their frequency of use started drastically increasing. The attractor for this phenomenon is unclear. Additionally, the use of any feminine pronouns have not been significant enough to even be on the list, which is indicative of how male-dominated society was and continues to be.