March 16, 2008
US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud
The above tag cloud shows the popularity, frequency, and trends in the usages of words within speeches, official documents, declarations, and letters written by the Presidents of the US between 1776 – 2007 AD.
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I think this is absolutely fascinating. It comes to no surprise that in the tag cloud above we’d see words like “Iraq” and “terrorists” light up in huge letters. The interesting part, to me, is when the tag clouds are dull and nothing in particular pops out at you. See Nixon’s State of the Union in ’72 and ’74 or Coolidge’s SotU in 1923.
Were these boring times for these Presidents, or were they just less sensationalist than most orators? Also, I wonder how these speeches were received as compared to others. I’d like to see some sort of graph relating extremity of terms compared to public reaction to the speeches. Are they more dull because they give equal weight to multiple topics, or are they taken more seriously because they are less hysterical?
All interesting stuff to me.