Obama vs. The Others

Looking at the words used in President Barack Obama's inaugural address, a few words instantly stuck out to me--men, women, and prosperity. Both men and women were both used four times, and prosperity was used three. I know this doesn't seem very important since they weren't used very often in the whole scheme of the address, but I was, nonetheless, able to make some substantial observations based on Obama's and the rest of the presidents' word choice.

Throughout Obama's address, he always said the phrase "men and women." When I say always, I mean he literally never addressed only one sex. At this time in history, this may seem normal and even expected, but it wasn't always like this. Instead of comparing Obama's word choice to a specific president, I chose to compare him to all of the past presidents. By clicking on the word in the word cloud in "Inaugural Words: 1789 to the Present" from New York Times, I was able to see how often the other presidents used the word. According to that information, the first time women was actually used in an inaugural address was by Woodrow Wilson in 1913. Even though I know and understand that women weren't considered to be equal to men during earlier times, this finding still shocked me. This really emphasized the idea that "back in the day" women were inferior to men. This choice of using--or not using--these words serves as a perfect reminder of how our society has changed over the years with equality and freedom.

As I said before, I also noticed that the word prosperity was used. This would have never stuck out to me if I hadn't clicked on the word itself. By doing this, I was able to see that the usage of prosperity has declined quite a bit. Over time, this word was used in 33 different inaugural addresses (if I counted right) out of the 56 total; however, over the last 15 inaugural addresses, the word has only been used in 5 of those addresses. This may seem to hold little importance, but the truth is that prosperity was used way more often earlier on.

My take on this is that prosperity used to hold more weight than it has in the recent years. I think in the earlier years, when America was growing and uniting, prosperity was an important goal. Perhaps, maybe the reason the word hasn't been used as much is because there are other more important goals of the nation and people today like wars, jobs, etc. I am not saying that during the last 15 inaugural addresses the president and our nation did not want success. I am just bringing forth the idea that maybe this idea of success isn't in the front of our minds anymore. I think Obama may have chosen to use this word to remind America of this important goal, and he may even hope to spark a drive for even better prosperity. His usage of this word shows that sometimes looking back at old goals is actually a good start for a step forward in an unsure economy.

I guess to sum it all up, Obama has used both different and similar words to what has been used in the past. He has even strayed from the pack of presidents of the current time to use language of presidents long ago. The language used now and then is a huge indication for the social, economic, political, national, and even world issues that play a role in our nation.