English Channel in English literature, 1800-2008

oxo

1800-2008
English corpus
smoothing of 5


source: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=swim+the+English+Channel,swam+the+English+Channel,swum+the+English+Channel&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=5&share=
Examples:
Joe will swim the English Channel.
Joe swam the English Channel.
Joe has swum the English Channel.




source: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Channel+swimmer,channel+swimmer,Channel+Swimmer&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=5&share=

evmo

Cool analysis, @oxo, but wouldn't the summed charts be preferable? Like so:

oxo

I'm not sure what import any of the four carry

Maybe the first in my post indicates that, nowadays, in books, people are writing more about their future swims than the swims they've actually swum. And maybe the second indicates that as a personal title 'Channel Swimmer' has never prevaled. I could try and come up with some other snarky takes, maybe even a couple polite ones too

In your first chart, I imagine the upswing between 1920 and 1930 could be related to Trudy Ederle et al. The one between 1970 and 1980 I'm not too sure about. The existence of pre-Webb data is also curious.

oxo

hmmm, Diana Nyad's Other Shores came out in 1978

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Buy Other Shores from Amazon

oxo

http://www.ted.com/talks/what_we_learned_from_5_million_books.html

Leonard_Jansen

oxo wrote:

The existence of pre-Webb data is also curious.

Possibly not. There were attempts prior to Webb, especially by one guy who had a suit that supposedly made you drown-proof. I also believe he had a rival as well, but in my semi-senile state I don't recall the details. It did get a good amount of publicity at the time, however.

I like your methodology. It is similar to how the allies were able to determine what was actually going on in the Third Reich during WWII by counting the # of references to various subjects in the newspapers.

-LBJ

oxo

Leonard_Jansen wrote:

oxo wrote:

The existence of pre-Webb data is also curious.

Possibly not. There were attempts prior to Webb, especially by one guy who had a suit that supposedly made you drown-proof. I also believe he had a rival as well, but in my semi-senile state I don't recall the details. It did get a good amount of publicity at the time, however.

The entrance into the literature of the past tense phrase 'swum the English Channel' in 1868 suggests someone had swum it that year. Of course usage prior to 1875 could derive from 'No one has swum the English Channel'.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=swim+the+English+Channel,swam+the+English+Channel,swum+the+English+Channel&year_start=1850&year_end=1905&smoothing=0

oxo

@Leonard_Jansen - Thanks, though I'm not sure what import, if any, ngrams carry, especially mine. WWII text analytics on newspapers, seems a bit more promising, but no more than a bit.

http://petewarden.com/2013/07/18/why-you-should-never-trust-a-data-scientist

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/jul/24/why-you-should-never-trust-a-data-visualisation

oxo

This one tickles me to no end:

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+Channel+rules&year_start=1875