State of the Union: Salmon and ‘we’

So, last night was the State of the Union address from President Barack Obama. The speech is always analysed in great detail by the press – apparently it wasn’t too noteworthy (apart from the salmon joke).

The language the president uses is one of the most analysed aspects of the State of the Union. The BBC has put together an article (with lots of graphs!) about the 10 most-used nouns and adjectives since 1790. Salmon is not included on the list.

The most interesting noun on the list is, for me, ‘United States’. It had a big peak in the late 18th Century, and has since had its ups and downs, becoming much less popular in recent years. The use of ‘American’ had a large spike in the early 1800s (not sure why) and has been fairly constant through the latter part of the 20th Century and the start of the 21st.

I wonder how the graph will look after last night’s address?