"Capitol Words" Displays Most-Used Word From Daily Congressional Record

Posted by David in Politics on July 8, 2008 at 9:03 am


The frequency with which we use certain words can often serve as an interesting glimpse into our values, our interests, and our priorities. Perhaps it’s with this rationale that Capitol Words was born. Capitol Words is a simple website that displays the word that was most often used in the congressional record that day. Even more interesting, it apparently has archives for this dating back through the last eight years (although for some reason I could not get some dates in 2000 and 2001 to work). According to the site’s “About” page:

Capitol Words gives you an at-a-glance view into the daily proceedings of the United States Congress through the simplest lens available-a single word. For every day that Congress is in session, Capitol Words displays the most frequently used word in the Congressional Record. Whether the word matches up to an issue, an action, or the name of a member of Congress, Capitol Words provides a snapshot of the main topic addressed by Congress for any given day, dating back to the second session of the 106th Congress (January 20, 2000).

I think this is a pretty fascinating site but I also wonder how useful can one word per day be? Is this service/site more than a novelty? You’ll have to decide for yourself; feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below.

Link – via Very Short List


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12 comments to ""Capitol Words" Displays Most-Used Word From Daily Congressional Record"

  1. xadrian
    July 8th, 2008 at 9:11 am

    A word cloud would be better suited for something like this. Someone dump some transcripts into Wordle.net

  2. j
    July 8th, 2008 at 9:24 am

    Someone already has: http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/27766/Capitol_Words_2008

  3. Claire
    July 8th, 2008 at 9:35 am

    You have to go back to May 15 before Iraq appears. Caribbean appears before Iraq. Energy and oil are the topics of interest and show up many times. It's an interesting website. Plus, it'll make it easier for Jon Stewert to compile his videos of politicians saying the same word continually. Plus, if they ever say "raise" as in pay raise when they don't mention Iraq as a main topic for months ... then it might be time to have a conversation with your government officials. (I say your because I am Canadian). It might be interesting to compile the Canadian word (and other countries) to see what they are talking about too.

  4. Polx
    July 8th, 2008 at 9:51 am

    I'd like to see Capitol Rude Words Displays Most-Used Words said ABOUT Congress.

    And I can start that list in five letters, beginning with C.

  5. sirwebster
    July 8th, 2008 at 10:26 am

    I see on June 13th they were planning their summer vacation

  6. sise
    July 8th, 2008 at 2:37 pm

    Caribbean! Looks like I'm not the only one planning my next vacation :)

  7. anon
    July 8th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    You can't see 2000-2001 because [Redacted by Homeland Secrity]

  8. anon
    July 8th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    Secrity -> Security
    ... too much caffeine

  9. Anthony
    July 8th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    America is a country.

  10. prophet
    July 9th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    Check out http://wordle.net/. It counts every word used in a document and creates an image.

  11. Martin
    July 9th, 2008 at 2:47 pm

    @Anthony: Actually, America is a continent. USA is a country

  12. Lynne
    September 9th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

    Pretty cool and very similar to a TV news experiment we did here on the frequency of words used on two TV programs during the week of the Republican Convention (O'Reilly Factor vs. The Daily Show). It's a pretty cool visualization of the most frequently used words on those particular shows during that week.

    You can read the blog post here:
    http://enterpriseblog.snapstream.com/2008/09/visualizing-television-ne ws-experiment/


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