Synonyms to call one's own
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Your support makes all the difference.The word "dictatorial" has been Blaired around a good deal this week, indeed so much that the Labour leader's associations with the word have overtaken those of the iron lady herself. Of the 852 instances of the word "dictatorial" on our database, there are now 73 associated with "Blair", 58 with "Thatcher and only 23 with "Saddam". But will Tony Blair succeed in capturing the word for himself in the way that "doe-eyed", for example, immediately evokes one particular name, or, a few years ago, "fragrant" needed no more identification?
In order to claim a particular phrase for one's own, one should be required to capture a certain percentage of all its usages. So let's see how some phrases and their main users fare. The table below indicates the number of appearances of given words or phrases in the database, and the number where the phrase occurs in the same article as the indicated name or names.
big ears 338
big ears & Noddy 165
big ears & Charles 46
bruiser 630
bruiser & Clarke 99
bruiser & Prescott 44
crybaby 79
crybaby & Gascoigne 8
cuckold 223
cuckold & Parker Bowles 37
doe-eyed 259
doe-eyed & princess 47
fragrant 1,737
fragrant & Archer 89
incandescent with rage 135
incandescent with rage
& Major 33
toe-sucking 457
toe-sucking & Fergie 228
toe-sucking & Mellor 121
toe-sucking & Fergie
& Mellor 14
waif-like 345
waif-like & Kate Moss 83
Thus of the 630 instances of the word "bruiser", 99 occur in connection with Kenneth Clarke and 44 with John Prescott. In other words, Kenneth Clarke has a bruising 15.8 per cent of the bruiser market compared with Mr Prescott's 7.0 per cent.
Mary Archer, once the very personification of fragrance, now claims only 5.1 per cent (but our database only goes back to 1993). Similar calculations enable us to arrive at a definitive top 10 based on percentages (we exclude Noddy, who is only in the original list through association):
1. toe-sucking Fergie 49.9
2. toe-sucking Mellor 26.4
3. incandescent with rage
Major 24.4
4. waif-like Kate Moss 24.1
5. doe-eyed princess 18.1
6. cuckold Parker Bowles 16.6
7. bruiser Clarke 15.7
8. big ears Charles 13.6
9. crybaby Gascoigne 10.1
10. dictatorial Blair 8.6
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