2004 & 2014 October Conferences. Session

This post is a continuation of the last week's post, and delves into more particulars in the comparison between the 2014 October session and the 2004 October session of General Conference.

First, lets take a look at the Priesthood sessions:

2004 Priesthood Session

2014 Priesthood Session

After noticing multiple repeated words between 2004 and 2014, I decided to bold and underline all words that repeated within the top 15 words between the two years. For the Priesthood sessions, 7 words repeated within the top 15.

This is also the first time that I noticed a negative word showing up in the top 15 words: deceived. Most of these appeared in the talk by Dallin H. Oaks, Be Not Deceived. He discussed the ability to use the Holy Ghost as a protector against being deceived.

2004 Priesthood Session					2014 Priesthood Session
Rank	Word	Total	Rate		Rank	Word	Total	Rate
1	Priesthood	66	0.54%		1	Priesthood	70	0.61%
2	fast	71	0.58%		2	God	35	0.30%
3	Lord	52	0.43%		3	Lord	35	0.30%
4	God	55	0.45%		4	church	34	0.29%
5	come	55	0.45%		5	Christ	34	0.29%
6	blessings	44	0.36%		6	time	34	0.29%
7	deceived	39	0.32%		7	Jesus	31	0.27%
8	time	43	0.35%		8	fast	26	0.23%
9	family	31	0.25%		9	testimony	25	0.22%
10	life	32	0.26%		10	members	24	0.21%
11	men	31	0.25%		11	gospel	23	0.20%
12	Christ	25	0.21%		12	president	21	0.18%
13	Jesus	26	0.21%		13	world	20	0.17%
14	know	50	0.41%		14	Savior	18	0.16%
15	receive	25	0.21%		15	Aaronic	17	0.15%
Other information:					Other information:
Speakers		6			Speakers		6
Duration		2 hours			Duration		2 hours
Total Words		12170			Total Words		11546

2004 Relief Society Meeting

2014 General Women's Session

The same method of bolding and underlining was used for the Women's sessions, but only 4 of the top 15 words repeated. Notice that the generally core words (God, Father, Jesus, and Christ) did not make it into the top 15 words for both of these sessions. This is the first time that I noticed this in looking at other sessions.

2004 Relief Society Meeting					2014 General Women's Session
Rank	Word	Total	Rate		Rank	Word	Total	Rate
1	sisters	52	0.80%		1	temple	53	0.73%
2	Society	51	0.78%		2	God	41	0.56%
3	prepared	29	0.45%		3	Christ	24	0.33%
4	Relief	50	0.77%		4	light	24	0.33%
5	heart	28	0.43%		5	love	23	0.32%
6	time	30	0.46%		6	eternal	22	0.30%
7	Lord	25	0.38%		7	life	22	0.30%
8	know	33	0.51%		8	blessings	21	0.29%
9	love	20	0.31%		9	covenants	21	0.29%
10	children	19	0.29%		10	Lord	19	0.26%
11	women	26	0.40%		11	family	18	0.25%
12	feel	23	0.35%		12	prepared	18	0.25%
13	years	19	0.29%		13	children	16	0.22%
14	President	15	0.23%		14	faith	16	0.22%
15	visiting	17	0.26%		15	power	16	0.22%
Other information:					Other information:
Speakers		4			Speakers		4
Duration		2 hours			Duration		2 hours
Total Words		6511			Total Words		7288

2004 General Sessions

2014 General Sessions

The same method was used again for bolding and underlining repeated words across the years. As has not yet been noticed, 11 of the top 15 words were repeated between the two years for the General sessions.

2004 General Sessions					2014 General Sessions
Rank	Word	Total	Rate		Rank	Word	Total	Rate
1	Lord	211	0.44%		1	God	259	0.40%
2	Christ	190	0.40%		2	Jesus	224	0.35%
3	God	202	0.43%		3	Christ	191	0.30%
4	Jesus	158	0.33%		4	Church	164	0.26%
5	love	163	0.34%		5	President	150	0.23%
6	faith	153	0.32%		6	Lord	143	0.22%
7	lives	120	0.25%		7	Father	125	0.19%
8	Church	141	0.30%		8	prophet	111	0.17%
9	testimony	116	0.24%		9	lives	100	0.16%
10	come	130	0.27%		10	life	82	0.13%
11	blessings	110	0.23%		11	know	75	0.12%
12	Father	122	0.26%		12	come	69	0.11%
13	know	111	0.23%		13	love	64	0.10%
14	life	126	0.27%		14	Savior	55	0.09%
15	day	78	0.16%		15	follow	52	0.08%
Other information:					Other information:
Speakers		26			Speakers		28
Duration		8 hours			Duration		8 hours
Total Words		47522			Total Words		64307

To me, this is one of the most interesting discoveries so far -- over the course of 10 years, 11 of the 15 most used words are identical when comparing the 4 General Sessions. Future posts will do the same comparisons, but going back further in time.

Thanks for tuning in! If you're curious, last week's post compared the entire conference between 2004 and 2014.