Which words do people have the most trouble spelling? We now have some insight into this question, based on a Google Trends analysis. Let's do a little fun analytics, and plot the results on a map! But before we get started, let's go old-school for a minute. Before the days
With the Christmas holiday approaching, I got to wondering what they call Santa in other countries. Of course, some countries don't celebrate Christmas - but most countries at least have some sort of "winter holiday," and most also have some tradition of gift-giving. So, I guess the better question might
Quick Quiz! Where might you hear the following conversation? ... Waitress: "What would you like to drink, honey?" Customer: "I'll have a coke." Waitress: "What kind?" Customer: "Diet Pepsi." If you answered somewhere between Texas and Georgia, you would be correct! To those of us not from that area, it
A lot of tourists flock to North Carolina. We have beaches, wreck diving, and lighthouses. We have the Great Smoky Mountains with whitewater kayaking, colorful fall leaves, and snow skiing. We have hot air balloon festivals & Scottish highland games. Oh, and some of the best barbecue you've ever tasted! But
When I was in college, I lived in the Alexander dorm, where each room had an American student and an International student. I learned a lot about the rest of the world, and I also heard a lot of different languages being spoken. I'm really impressed when I hear people
If you do much traveling in the United States, you're bound to hear a few words and expressions that are unique to certain areas. Well y'all get ready, because I'm fixin' to analyze some of those words for ya! I recently found a really neat web application called The Great
With over 1,000,000 words in the English language, why is it that we tend to use the same words over & over? This blog shows a hierarchical approach to help you branch out and choose more descriptive words. But first, to get you into the mood for a blog about
Analytics claim this is the 20th most used word in English writing. What word, you might ask? This word. Which one? This one right here! You might think I'm trying to lead into an Abbott & Costello-style comedy routine, but I literally mean this word ... the word 'this'! As you can
~ This article is co-authored by Biljana Belamaric Wilsey and Teresa Jade, both of whom are linguists in SAS' Text Analytics R&D. When I learned to program in Python, I was reminded that you have to tell the computer everything explicitly; it does not understand the human world of nuance
As you travel around the world, do you know where English, French, Spanish, and Arabic are spoken? This blog will help you quickly answer that question, with some cool SAS maps! But first, here's a picture of my friend Joy posing beside an interesting sign during one of her international
