Using some basic web scraping, I downloaded the texts for all LDS General Conference talks from 1971 to 2014. I then separated out the talks given by Ezra Taft Benson from 1971 to 1989. I then did a word histogram analysis on the 139,000 words used in those talks to see which words he used most frequently. And the result was...
the, of, and, to, in, a, that, is, we, you...
Hmmm...not very informative on President Benson (I'll refer to him as President Benson, even though I'm also including talks he gave as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve). It turns out that President Benson's most commonly used words match up pretty well with the most commonly used words in the English language. For things to get a little more interesting, we have to take out the most common words in the English language. Below is a histogram showing the frequency of President Benson's top 20 words (out of ~139,000) when the hundred or so most common words in the English language (aka the "Standard Lexicon") are removed.
A little more interesting, huh? The top word used is church, followed by God, Lord, Christ, book, Mormon, Jesus, etc.
Are there insights into the themes of President Benson's talks from this graph? Perhaps. However, what if these top twenty words are just the standard words used by all general authorities in their general conference talks? In other words, how do we differentiate the words that President Benson used in particular versus the standard "General Conference Lexicon"?
To address that question, I did a histogram analysis of all conference talks from 1971 to 2015. That's about 3,400 talks and roughly 6.2 million words. As you might imagine, it took a good Sunday afternoon plus a few Excel crashes to get it all processed. The result is very interesting, though. It turns out that President Benson does use very similar words to other general authorities. However, by subtracting the percent frequency occurrence of the words in an average general authority talk from the words used by President Benson, you start to get some insightful results. Below is a graph showing the same list from above after subtracting the general conference frequency.
It turns out, that among President Benson's top 20 words, some are standouts, while others are not. For example, church, God, Lord, Christ, book, and Mormon are all used with a higher frequency than the average general authority, with book and Mormon standing out the most. And while Christ is used more frequently, Jesus is used slightly less frequently. President Benson clearly preferred the more formal name Christ over the more familiar name Jesus.
Looking at the remainder of the list is somewhat interesting, but things get more insightful if we re-sort the list to contain the top 20 words after subtracting the General Conference Lexicon. Here's a graph showing the re-sorted list:
Now we're getting to the gold! Both book and Mormon take the cake in % frequency as compared to other general authorities. The word book occurs 519 times and the word Mormon occurs 432 times in his talks. The combined phrase Book of Mormon appears 401 times in his texts, indicating that book and Mormon are really just a slightly inflated indicator of the frequency with which President Benson referred to the Book of Mormon. President Benson's reputation as an advocate for the Book of Mormon comes from his vehement endorsement in talks such as The Book of Mormon--Keystone of Our Religion or The Book of Mormon Is the Word of God. However, the histogram indicates that he consistently referred to the Book of Mormon throughout his ministry.
After book and Mormon, the words God, church, Lord appear at a higher frequency. Apparently President Benson made frequent mention of these already commonly used words. Looking for additional topics, there are words related to family life (home, family, fathers) and government (states, earth, constitution, land, government). With these topics combined, you can see President Benson's emphasis on "God, Family, Country." Other notable top 20 words include Joseph & Smith, mission, and pride. President Benson's talk Beware of Pride contributes more than half of his usage of the word pride, but it would still be on the "more frequent" list even without that seminal talk.
The graph above shows the absolute frequency of occurrence, but what about the relative frequency of occurrence? The graph below shows the ratio increase of the words above. In other words, not only did President Benson use the words book and Mormon 0.3% more on an absolute usage basis than the average general authority. However, those words are at a ratio of 4 times (400%) more. From this view, the word constitution stands out as being used 2000% or 20 times more frequently than the average general authority. Although constitution was not the most frequently used word by President Benson, the use by the average general authority is rare. The result being that President Benson uses it at a much higher ratio.
What word shows up when you re-sort the % increase list? Interestingly, it is the word communism. Apparently the word communism occurs in conference talks from 1971 to 2015 about 21 times, 17 of which are in talks by President Benson. In case you're wondering, the other 4 occurrences are by Dallin H Oaks, Loren C Dunn, Bruce R McConkie, and Harold B Lee, each with one mention of the word communism.
What are some of your favorite talks by Elder/President Benson? Any notable words you remember from those talks?
Interesting analysis! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThat was very interesting! Technology provides us with fascinating new ways to search the scriptures. (Someone commented that we don't have to search the scriptures any more, now we let Google do it for us.) Actually, with help from Google, we can search them more effectively than ever before.
ReplyDeleteI was happy to see that your word analysis confirmed what I remember as the main themes of President Benson.
Number one was the Book of Mormon. I remember going to the Distribution Center and buying all the Book of Mormon pictures they had to use in FHE to teach little Lisa and Lori. We helped "flood the Earth with the Book of Mormon" by writing our testimony and putting it in Book of Mormons for the missionaries to use.
I also remember his talks to Mothers and Fathers. The Mother talk had a great influence on my life.
The talk about Pride was one of the most memorable Conference talks of my life.
And I remember President Benson's patriotism, and that he talked about political things more than any other General Authority.