re: #149 sattv4u2

How about the unprecedented obsession with counting words…

Andrew Jackson was the first president to use the word “unprecedented,” in 1831, according to a search of the archives of The American Presidency Project. For more than 100 years afterward, presidents used the word “unprecedented” in 72 speeches and mostly reserved it for major addresses.

But since FDR talked of meeting “the unprecedented task before us” during his first inaugural address in 1933, presidents have used the word on almost 2,000 occasions to describe everything from the death of Elvis Presley (Carter) to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (Reagan).

Obama has relied on “unprecedented” in more than 90 instances, using the word at least 129 times in everything from major addresses to small speeches, statements, memorandums and proclamations. (Bush, by contrast, used the word 262 times over eight years.)