Popular words
Google Ngram Viewer is a really cool way to check how common words or expressions are in written English. It searches through all of the books that were printed between 1500 and 2009 (or later—it changes every year) to compare words or phrases.
Here's what you should do:
- Write in words or phrases (separated by a comma without a space in between).
- Click 'return'.
- That's it!
Google Ngram will show you a graph of the history of each word/phrase and how long it’s been popular in written English. (Notice, it doesn’t tell you how popular something is in spoken English.)
Which is more common: incredible or fantastic?
For example, look at these two Google Ngrams (or click on the link below each) and talk about what you learn.
Source: Books Ngram Viewer for strong good adj
Source: Books Ngram Viewer for strong bad adj
Open the Exercise below and answer questions about the Ngrams.