There have been 116 State of the Union addresses since the 1900s. The Washington Post has a nifty interactive infographic illustrating word usage frequency, in neat little circles. See how the 20 presidents used words. See “communism” get replaced by “terrorism” (108 times in 2001 from Bush Jr) and the stream of “America”/”American” steadily getting thicker, stroked up since the ’70s. It was a big year for “war” in 1944 (125 by Roosevelt). “Environment” was first mentioned by Truman in 1953.
Oh, and this! Last night, President Obama said “us” 20 times (for the first time since 1929), said “you” 24 times (for the first time since 1923) and said “Soviet” ones, (for the first time since 2003).
Then again, Obama’s #SOTU was so predictable, you could almost have played bingo to it.
