Nifty tool

[telophase]

The OED Text Vizualiser. Drop 500 or fewer words written post-1750 into it, tell it the date of the writing, and it'll give you a graph (and a couple of spreadsheets) that shows you the general time of origin and language from which the word was inherited, borrowed, or formed (Germanic, English, Romance, Latin, etc.).

I dropped two sections of Deadwater (the thing I'm currently writing) into it, one from Burn's POV and one from Calli's, just to see what my language choices are for each voice.


Burn's sections


Calli's sections


Of course it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, which is that Calli is a bit more cosmopolitan and academic than Burn (to put it mildly), but it's nice to see that I'm doing what I set out to do in graph form. :D

There's some weirdness--it has "magic" as appearing in the early 20th century, and yet according to the OED its first recorded use is sometime in the 1300s, but overall I think it's an interesting little tool.

edit: AHA. "Magic" as a VERB is first recorded in the early 20th century. Makes more sense now.

Comments

[selenite0]

I had to look up "brass" because I had the same reaction to it you did to "magic". Turns out to be the same answer--verb form is recent.

I guess verbing nouns is a relatively recent behavior for English.

[telophase]

I guess it thinks it's a verb--I'm using it in the form "brass hat" as a way to refer to nobles that isn't stereotypically British, like "nob."

[trobadora]

Wow, this is fascinating! Thank you for sharing!

[ellen_fremedon]

OMG, thank you! This is amazing.

BRB, pasting in all of my Les Mis fic 500 words at a time.