| | :::Thank you for your thoughts. However, suppose there was a considerable increase in English word vocabulary from 1600 to 2010. As the leisure time expanded and the literature expanded, society became more refined in its thinking. Just as Eskimos developed 100 different words for snow, economic theory and social commentary grew more refined, and the number of words relevant to talking about conservatism grew. So, we need to control for the total number of English words in active use. For example, suppose someone developed a list of "liberal words" over time. It could be that the number of conservative words and the number of liberal words both grew between 1600 and 2010 because the total number of English words grew during that time. What would be more relevant was whether the ratio of conservative words/total words grew faster than the ratio of liberal words/total words. In response to DonnyC, one could use other measures of the growth in public acceptance of conservative thought instead of classifying words. For example, one could look a public opinion polling data, or election results where self-identified conservative candidate ran, or the enactment of key conservative policies over time. Thanks. [[User:Wschact|Wschact]] 23:36, 10 September 2013 (EDT) | | :::Thank you for your thoughts. However, suppose there was a considerable increase in English word vocabulary from 1600 to 2010. As the leisure time expanded and the literature expanded, society became more refined in its thinking. Just as Eskimos developed 100 different words for snow, economic theory and social commentary grew more refined, and the number of words relevant to talking about conservatism grew. So, we need to control for the total number of English words in active use. For example, suppose someone developed a list of "liberal words" over time. It could be that the number of conservative words and the number of liberal words both grew between 1600 and 2010 because the total number of English words grew during that time. What would be more relevant was whether the ratio of conservative words/total words grew faster than the ratio of liberal words/total words. In response to DonnyC, one could use other measures of the growth in public acceptance of conservative thought instead of classifying words. For example, one could look a public opinion polling data, or election results where self-identified conservative candidate ran, or the enactment of key conservative policies over time. Thanks. [[User:Wschact|Wschact]] 23:36, 10 September 2013 (EDT) |
| | + | ::::The English language as a whole does grow over time, but not at a geometric rate. Yet conservative terms do grow geometrically, which demonstrates that the ratio of conservative to non-conservative words is increasing.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 00:07, 12 September 2013 (EDT) |