google ngrams

[MrBarnett]

but “to shoot down someone” is a different expression from “to down someone”?

Because “down” is used as a verb.

It’s very possible it existed, it just seems to have come into use in the 20th century.

Kattrup,

I searched for ‘downed him’ in a newspaper archive and found hundreds of 19thc examples.

Am I missing your point?


Gary

[Kattrup]

The Google Ngrams thing is certainly of interest, but it's not without its criticisms. It's never going to close this one, let's be honest. Ultimately, it's not an accurate record of every use of language.

Interestingly, one of the major criticisms of ngrams is it's reliance on scientific and technical documents. Which should show "one off" prior to 20th century, in technical terms, as had been proved by the OED and latterly some some suburbanite called Dave.

So no reference at all to "one off" is odd. Specify "one off -noun" and it skews the result, because it's a picky bitch when it comes to exact definition. If it's infallible, it should find all those "one off" technical definitions. Which exist.

And to both parties, it's not about the pros and cons. Be objective.

Hi al bundy

it’s not infallible in the sense that it has tracked everything ever printed. Very very small numbers of n-grams might also be left out for, it only considers n-grams that occur in at least 40 books. So the fact that examples of one-off exist even in the 19th century is not a guarantee that they will show up in the n-gram viewer.

It only (!) shows the frequency of use across time.

So, knowing that, quite remarkable that James Maybrick, in the span of a short document, happened to use at least three phrases that seem to have come into use only in the 20th century.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

The Google Ngrams thing is certainly of interest, but it's not without its criticisms. It's never going to close this one, let's be honest. Ultimately, it's not an accurate record of every use of language.

Interestingly, one of the major criticisms of ngrams is it's reliance on scientific and technical documents. Which should show "one off" prior to 20th century, in technical terms, as had been proved by the OED and latterly some some suburbanite called Dave.

So no reference at all to "one off" is odd. Specify "one off -noun" and it skews the result, because it's a picky bitch when it comes to exact definition. If it's infallible, it should find all those "one off" technical definitions. Which exist.

And to both parties, it's not about the pros and cons. Be objective.

[Iconoclast]

Brilliant!
Everything is screaming HOAX
The Baron

The Baron,

Goodness, I think you may finally have cracked the case!

As a statistician, these graphs are beyond dispute. They basically prove that the scrapbook could not have been written in 1888 and 1889. Good job, lads!

I once wrote a poem called 'A Graph for No Reason'. I don't know why it's suddenly coming back to me now ...

The Bard

[The Baron]

A picture speaks more than 190 billion words:
OnOne-off _NOUN_ means the search is for any combination of one-off followed by a noun.

Google n-grams show frequency, not total number of words. Just in case someone was wondering.

Brilliant!

Everything is screaming HOAX




The Baron