Google Ngram Viewer

[The Monkey]

You seen this? It's pretty interesting for anyone interested in linguistics/literature/history.

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/

Basically is searches five million books (5% of all published) from the past 510 years to check the frequency of different words throughout history.

 

[Krynn72]

 

[MJ12]

Need a time machine 2 get dat 1940's ass.

 

[Shakermaker]

Ketchup is unaffected by war, while mayonnaise suffered a lot during WWI and WWII.

 

[MJ12]

Dun, dun, dunnnn. For serious though, can someone explain this? The same goes for the word "Computer". Computer and Internet both have a sudden rise and a sudden drop between 1900's-1910's.

 

[Remus]

Something really funky going on in the late 17th century.

WTF

 

[Shakermaker]

Something really funky going on in the late 17th century.

Pre-1800 results don't seem very trustworthy.

 

[CptStern]

WTF

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage

In Babbage's time, numerical tables were calculated by humans who were called 'computers', meaning "one who computes", much as a conductor is "one who conducts".

 

[Remus]

Yes I've heard of Charles Babbage and his mechanical computer, but the graph shows a spike over a hundred years before he was born. Must be some kind of mistake.

 

[Escaep]

 

[MJ12]

"Computer", "internet", and "Space Travel" all go up near 1900, and then suddenly drop in the 1910's.

 

[ChiliFan]

changing meanings

 

[CptStern]

Yes I've heard of Charles Babbage and his mechanical computer, but the graph shows a spike over a hundred years before he was born. Must be some kind of mistake.

lol I need (better) glasses. I thought the first number on the graph was 1800 not 1600

also:

Until electronic computers became commercially available, the term "computer", in use from the mid 17th century, meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations.

that's closer to what the graph is saying

 

[Shakermaker]

"Computer", "internet", and "Space Travel" all go up near 1900, and then suddenly drop in the 1910's.

Sample error probably. I am guessing a couple of books from the 2000-2010 period were filed under 1900-1910.

 

[ríomhaire]

 

[StarBob]

Real lack of booty these days...

Looks like real proof dogs have been better than cats for hundreds of years.

 

[Vegeta897]

Wait... what?

 

[Schweppe]

Search for "pirates,ninjas" and you get a small Easter egg.

 

[Doomination]

haha

 

[Ennui]

Wait... what?

Yeah, the hype in the six decades leading up to Dragonball Z's premiere in 1800 was INSANE. Since then its popularity has slowly faded away; the exciting, meteoric rise of pedophilia beginning in the 60s and 70s with the advent of computer networks was only the nail in its coffin.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Timeless, truly.

 

[morgs]

 

[Krynn72]

 

[The Monkey]

Why did air and water spike during WWII?

 

[Remus]

Why did air and water spike during WWII?

Books talking about air and naval battles perhaps?

 

[ríomhaire]

Water also spiked more largely during WWI

Air probably talking about air battles for the first time in history. Water for either naval battles or water shortages.

 

[Bad^Hat]

LOL.

 

[YROC]

haha

4chan didn't go up until 2003. What are you laughing at?

 

[The Monkey]

 

[Stylo]

 

[Vegeta897]

Women were basically irrelevant until the 1800s.
Which actually coincides with...

 

[kineaesth]

**** yeah, treble has had its day, bass is on the rise

edit: 1950 must have been a radical year for dance parties