Hank Fox tallies the words used in Bush’s state of the union speech…which I missed. Which I won’t bother to listen to. The only word I want to hear him say is “Goodbye,” but apparently his speech was all about “Terra’.”
« Finally!
Word count
« Finally!
Tom says
Sorry, PZ, the term is “terrr.” It’s pronounced (or “pronouncified,” if you’re GWB) with exactly one-and-one-half syllables.
June says
Fascinating how Bush threatened several times, with sternly pointed finger, to veto the vote of the People, and then lectured Congress on how important the People are to him.
Just once, I’d like to see Congress rise and yell back “and we will override your effen veto”.
Gary says
He must have been talking about Tara. She has a great blog. I didn’t even know Bush liked to read blogs.
david winter says
style.org has a neat tool to parse this and other other state of the union speeches. With pretty colours even
Prillotashekta says
Bush may not have used the word “science” at all, but he DID call for a “complete ban” on the “buying, selling, patenting, or cloning of human bodies” which got a standing ovation from the Republicans.
bernarda says
Besides his war crimes, his tax cuts for the rich, Baby-Killer Bush will go down for his veto of SCHIP, which a minority of Retuglican think-alikes upheld.
Praise Jesus for compassionate conservatism for insurance companies.
zer0 says
That tool is amazing #4. I parsed out of curiosity Terror vs. Israel. Since 2004, Bush has mentioned Terror 105 times. In that same time span, he has mentioned Israel 5 times. So Bush is far more concerned with scaring the shit out of the American public, and sweeping his sick desires for a Jewish State and the Rapture etc etc under the rug. Sick Zionist fuck.
qedpro says
are you sure he wasn’t talking about terror?
Mooser says
I have terrorist laminate in my kitchen! It’s “green Terra”
Who knew Formica had connections to Al Queada?
Paholaisen Asianajaja says
How many “sorry”-words were there?
mothra says
And the production of that laminate is. . .formication- of course the republicans are against it.
In his SOYU speech, GW called for vouchers so inner city kids could attend private and alternative schools and more money for alternative education and faith based organizations. As has been posted by others, he, and other rethuglicans, are out to destroy public education. He needs his vetoes overridden, i.e. slapped down so hard his pen hand is a bloody stump. Hmmm. . . maybe he could be charged with theft (in addition to war crimes) after he leaves office and renditioned to Saudi Arabia.
mothra says
For any FBI or Chenybots reading, the above was an example of hyperbole. I am disgusted with, disgraced by, and ashamed of the leader of our nation.
Wes says
Out of curiosity I parsed “threat” versus “diplomacy”. As can be expected, “threat” peaked with 16 mentions just before the Iraq war, then tapered off as the war went to shit. Mentions of “Diplomacy” don’t outnumber “threat” until 2007.
http://style.org/stateoftheunion/parse/?q=threat&q2=diplomacy&wordsize=2×3
Of course, just parsing those two words doesn’t prove anything by itself, but it is interesting that it fit the pattern I thought it would be.
Cephus says
That’s easy, Bush has never said he was sorry for anything. I checked it out on the style.org site and the word “sorry” has never appeared.
Anyone surprised?
Infophile says
Not surprised. Closest Bush ever came to apologizing was after Hurricane Katrina when he admitted fault for handling the situation poorly. Didn’t apologize for it, though, and I don’t think he’s ever admitted fault for anything else.
Ebo Tebo says
Cocksucker! I(We)can’t stand the Bastard!!
Bride of Shrek says
Weird, I parsed “wanker” and “George Bush” and came up with nothing. Now, if you parsed some of my speech I think the results would be somewhat different.
Tom says
PZ sez: The only word I want to hear him say is “Goodbye.” In my fantasy world, we’d also get to hear him say “Guilty, Your Honor.”
alex says
did he mention “vegans”?
no?
he doesn’t mind after all?
Peter Ashby says
So did he mention us folks in Yurp at all?
Peter Ashby says
Oops, sorry that should have been ultra loyal airstrip one.
CrypticLife says
“God” wins out over “science”, 19-12, using #4’s tool.
Which is kind of a surprise. I didn’t think the score was going to be that close.
CrypticLife says
update: “faith” beats “science” 31-12. Much more Superbowlish.
Though I’m hoping the Giants will win this year.
Robert Thille says
This should probably be anonymous, but I’d like to hear Bush say, “Please don’t waterboard me a tenth time.”
What’s the matter, don’t you like “swimming”?
Stu says
Bush covered all Four Horsemen in this SotU. I counted 20 variations of “terror”, 6 surge, 1 famine, 1 genocide and 1 disease.
MarcusA says
I didn’t listen to the speech either. What’s the point? His words and actions are rarely ever connected. And I feel sickly ever time I see his stupid smirk.
MAJeff says
And I feel sickly ever time I see his stupid smirk.
It’s not just that. There’s something about his “s”…bugs the shit out of me; can’t listen.
Sven DiMilo says
Here’s the corresponding tag cloud
PeteK says
“We gotta liberatize those Eye-rackinians!”
Brian W. says
Um, Bush DID use the word science.
“On matters of life and science, we must trust in the innovative spirit of medical researchers and empower them to discover new treatments while respecting moral boundaries. ”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080128-13.html
He also used the words “sciences” and “scientists”.
Certainly not trying to defend him or anything but it makes me not really trust Hank Fox all that much.
Shigella says
“On matters of life and science, we must trust in the innovative spirit of medical researchers and empower them to discover new treatments while respecting moral boundaries. ”
Moral boundaries defined by religious fundamentalists who have neither the intelligence nor the education to understand what it is that scientists really do all day in those mysterious labs.
By “empower” he means threaten with fatal funding cuts (or no funding to begin with) if said medical researchers don’t play by the religious rights’ rules. And while I agree that cloning human “bodies” (dead bodies? partial bodies? what does he mean exactly?) may not be a particularly ethical path for current science to take, I am all for the cloning of human organs/stem cells for transplant and research purposes. Too bad he didn’t have two functional neurons to rub together so he could address the difference, but in Jeebus’s eyes, it’s all an abomination anyway, right?
Pierce R. Butler says
None applauding more vigorously than Senator David Vitter, you may be sure.
hinschelwood says
Christopher Morris cut up Bush’s speeches and pasted them back together so that he actually told the truth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushwhacked_MP3
The video of the 2003 State of the Nation address is pretty well done.
MBL says
I didn’t see the word dezhizhunzh on the list either. He used that like eight times.
Nan says
My reaction to Bush’s speeches is always to think basically, how nice, POTUS can read (more or less) at a 5th grade level. I doubt he has much actual input into what he’s going to say other than to nod his head in agreement as Cheney dictates to the speech writers. I do wonder how many rehearsals they go through making sure he doesn’t stumble over too many big words.
Incidentally, I read an analysis a few years ago that speculated that the less interested Bush is in something the more he stumbles as he talks. Apparently, he’s quite articulate when the subject is something he actually cares about, like professional baseball or what type of chew toys Barney prefers.
Pierce R. Butler says
Barney schmarney – Dubious speaks clearly and in complete sentences when he’s ordering or threatening violence (at least according to Mark Crispin Miller’s The Bush Dyslexicon, iirc).
Hank Fox says
My bad, Brian. I’m another of those Americans who can no longer bear to hear Bush speak. I used the word list from the Time Magazine site, trusting that it would be complete.
I’ve added a correction to the post.
Nan says
“Dubious speaks clearly and in complete sentences when he’s ordering or threatening violence”
And he trips over his own tongue any time he tries to claim being interested in helping the poor, improving education, fixing the health care mess, ending the war in Iraq rather than prolonging it. . .
gerald spezio says
Bush is a murderer, and our Congress cheered him again and again.
Hilarious and/or McCain will continue the murder.
Phineas says
If you don’t want to read or watch the actual thing, I wrote up a useful clarified summary.
llewelly says
Brian W. (#30) :
Hank Fox relied on Time’s list of all words used at least 3 times. Words used only once or twice (note variants such as ‘sciencetist’ are counted seperately) were not listed. This is obvious to those who followed the links.
Arnosium Upinarum says
MBL, #48: LOL!!! My monitor is now drenched with tea, much of it delivered through my nose.