Fun with Google NGram Viewer, Which Views N-Grams

[beamjockey]

I am fascinated by Google NGram Viewer, by the Science paper that accompanied its announcement, and by the 88-page supplemental material that accompanied the paper.

best practice, best practices
big picture
bionic, cyborg
bottom line
brainstorm, brainstorming
critical thinking
cybernetics, cybernetic, cyberspace
deliverables, deliverable
mission statement
network, networking
rocket science, not rocket science, not exactly rocket science
run it up the flagpole
synergy, synergistic, synergism
23 skidoo
year 2000

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

By modern informal naming conventions for extrasolar planets, Earth is presumably Sol b. Unless for discovery one needs realization that it really is a planet, in which case it's probably Sol g.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Why "b?"

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The letters are assigned in order of discovery, starting with b. a is presumably the parent star, by analogy with the capital-letter designations for multiple stars, but nobody ever uses a.