

Ask HN: What happened to 'effusive' in 1866? - seahorse

If you do a Google search for &#x27;effusive&#x27;, and then click on &#x27;Translations, word origin, and more definitions&#x27; you see the start of a hockey stick graph while &#x27;effusive&#x27; gets users.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;?gws_rd=ssl#q=effusive<p>What happened in 1866 that made this word popular?  And why did growth hit a plateau around 1900?<p>Is there something we could learn about virality just by studying word popularity?
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hownottowrite
I suspect it is related to the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883...

According to the OED, effusive was used in GEOLOGY in the late 19th century.
One particular reference in the extended entry is enlightening:

 _1888 F. H. Hatch in J. J. H. Teall Brit. Petrogr. 429 Effusive, a term
lately used abroad for those rocks which have been poured out at the surface,
the word eruptive now being generally used for the whole group of massive
rocks._

As noted, Krakatoa erupted in 1883. It was massive in sheer destructive force
(though not quite as bad as Tambora in 1815, which remains the deadliest in
recorded history). Still, it was a global phenomenon.

Adding "krakatoa" to ngram reveals that it may just be tied to the spike,
though perhaps this is just correlation.

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=effusive%2Ckra...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=effusive%2Ckrakatoa&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=7&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Ceffusive%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Beffusive%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BEffusive%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Ckrakatoa%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BKrakatoa%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BKRAKATOA%3B%2Cc0)

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ajkjk
Hm, the ngram graph seems to show 'effusive' spiking well before Krakatoa, so
I doubt that's the root explanation for the increase.

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hownottowrite
If you dial down the smoothing, there is a blip right before Krakatoa's rise
(1884-1887). Looking at the books from that time, it seems "effusive" was
general parlance appearing in other places as well, including several popular
elocution guides (of which Google records many versions).

The blip dies out though, so it would seem that geologic and general science
reporting are likely to be the ongoing source.

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Mithaldu
Basic statistics. There are two factors at work here that obscure the real
data:

1\. The data is smoothed. Set the smoothing to 0 to see the real data.

2\. The data is not absolute, but relative (note it's %) to the entire body of
data Google has available for that year. The further back you go, the less
overall data is available. I suspect strongly that the spikes you see are
merely years where very few books overall are available.

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hotpockets
I don't see any clickable 'Translations, word origin, and more definitions'.
Can you post a screen grab?

I think this is what you are talking about though:

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=effusive&case_...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=effusive&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Ceffusive%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Beffusive%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BEffusive%3B%2Cc0)

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cgabios
[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=effusive&case_...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=effusive&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1860&year_end=1870&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Ceffusive%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Beffusive%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BEffusive%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BEFFUSIVE%3B%2Cc0)

~~~
neves
Nice! Right click the graph to aggregate it.

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seahorse
Clickable link:
[https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=effusive](https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=effusive)

Serendipitously, someone submitted a similar story just 3 minutes before:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9573862](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9573862)

~~~
ntumlin
I wonder what caused submitting word definitions on Google suddenly become
popular in mid-May of 2015.

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dredmorbius
Seems it turned up in an elocution text of the time. Upward social amition +
speech patterns.

[https://books.google.com/books?id=41RDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA10&dq=%2...](https://books.google.com/books?id=41RDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA10&dq=%22effusive%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ovZbVaqAMYfhoAScz4H4Dw&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA)

