More Fun With Ngrams: the Phrase "Ivy League"

College Confidential Community
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<p>[Google</a> Ngram Viewer](<a href=“http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=The+Ivy+League&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3]Google”>http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=The+Ivy+League&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3)</p>

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<p>IL vs Big Ten</p>

<p>[Google</a> Ngram Viewer](<a href=“http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=The+Ivy+League%2C+The+Big+Ten&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3]Google”>http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=The+Ivy+League%2C+The+Big+Ten&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3)</p>

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<p>[Google</a> Ngram Viewer](<a href=“http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=The+Ivy+League%2CThe+Big+Ten%2CNESCAC&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3]Google”>http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=The+Ivy+League%2CThe+Big+Ten%2CNESCAC&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3)</p>

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<p>guys, no one puts a “the” in front of Ivy League, it’s like facebook, do you call still call it “thefacebook”?</p>

<p>here:</p>

<p>[Google</a> Ngram Viewer](<a href=“http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Ivy+League%2C+Big+Ten%2C+NESCAC&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3]Google”>http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Ivy+League%2C+Big+Ten%2C+NESCAC&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3)</p>

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<p>[The</a> Ivy League](<a href=“http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/landing/index]The”>Ivy League)
But, I see your point. ;)</p>

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<p>confidentialcoll, by the same reckoning, many people write Big 10 as opposed to Big Ten.</p>

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<p>^ and the “Big Ten” or “big 10” could mean a lot of other things. This is just phrase counts…it doesn’t correct for context.</p>

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<p>Good point UCB.</p>

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<p>Big Ten? You mean the land grant football schools? Why are they even being discussed on a thread about academic schools?</p>

<p>Can someone compare “community College” to “Ivy League?”</p>

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<p>^ Here we go…</p>

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<p>One interesting thing this data confirms is that “Ivy League” means something beyond merely the athletic conference, since the term was in use long before the Ivy League conference was formed in 1954. Some CC people mistakenly argue that the Ivy League is nothing more than an athletic conference.</p>

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<p>^^^ According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known instance of the use of the term “Ivy League” was in the Christian Science Monitor on February 7, 1935. Interestingly, the Ngram targets the mid-'30s pretty accurately.</p>