TRENDS OF CULTURE:
“War, American”
Although the context in which these words appear remains entirely unknown, I can’t help but feel this correlation reinforces the militant stereotype of the United States. Unsurprisingly, “war” peaks during the years of each world war (1914–1918) and (1939–1945) around the same time “American” sees rapid increase. The mention of “war” was nearly identical for the first year of the Civil (1861, .029%) and Vietnam War (1955, .031%). The decrease in “war” mentioning seen from 1965 to 2000 could likely be a result of a change in popular parlance as terms like conflict are now commonly used to refer to war-like circumstance.
Also, similar results appear when swapping “American” for “United States”.
“Happy, Stress”
Smoothing this one out made the message very clear, “stress” is becoming more of a hot topic whilst “happy” decreases. There was a lot of happiness being talked about in the 1800s and virtually no stress until the advent of the civil war. “Stress” gains considerable momentum beginning in 1970 and “happy” is at an all time low in 2000.
JUST FOR FUN:
“Most, Less, and Least”
Much to my surprise this ngram went exactly as I anticipated. I experienced similarly coincidental results searching “1,2,3”, “one,two,three” and “first,second,third” with all comparisons resulting in sequential order with “first”,”one”, “1”, and “most” occurring considerably more regularly than their comparative counterparts.
“Apples, Oranges”
For humors sake I decided to compare apples and oranges. The result showed a steady disparity in popularity between the two, with apples being the most often referenced. Interestingly enough both peaked in popularity between the years 1909-1948.