Harvard and Google got married (NY Times article, Fri Dec 17) and have given birth to a database containing all the words in all the books published between 1500 and 2008 in English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese and Russian.
You—yes you—can find this database on line and search for a single word or particular phrase up to five words long and track its birth, life, decline, ascent or long-term flat-line existence. You will see, in graphic terms, how frequently your word or phrase appears from year to year.
This is very cool for language historians: they will be able to track the evolution of words and phrases. The question is what will the rest of us use it for?
We can use it to recognize this truth: key words repeated throughout a speech or presentation will live a long life in the minds of our listeners, and as a result, can have considerable influence over them.
For instance, if you use words such as “slow,” “patient,”, and “easy” when speaking to a group, and then ask them to go stand on a line to wait for something, they are more likely to wait placidly and politely than another group that did not hear those words spoken prior to waiting.
Speech has power to change behavior. Using a word repeatedly has power too. Choose your key words strategically and speak them often to create the behaviors you’re looking for.