State of the Union: The rise of 'we'

Some words feature prominently in every US presidential State of the Union message, others come and go as events dictate or fashions change. As President Barack Obama prepares to address Congress, we look at the ups and downs of the 10 nouns and adjectives (and one pronoun) used most often since 1790.

Word count: 10,960 We "We are moving through a perilous time" Harry S. Truman, 1952 Word count: 7,036 Government "I shall ask to change the framework of government itself" Richard M. Nixon, 1971 Word count: 5,129 Congress "Now, my friends in Congress, I want to conclude…" Lyndon B Johnson, 1969 Word count: 4,580 United States "There is a rank due to the United States among nations" George Washington, 1793 Word count: 3,794 People "The American people demand that we change" Bill Clinton, 1994 Word count: 3,302 Country "This country, among the most fertile within our limits" Thomas Jefferson, 1803 Word count: 3,249 Public "All emergency public works shall be united in a … new and greatly enlarged plan" Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1935 Word count: 2,757 War "Our present and immediate task is to win the war" Woodrow Wilson, 1917 Word count: 2,431 American "I am proud of America and I am proud to be an American" Gerald Ford, 1976 Word count: 2,174 World "It is a big idea: a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together" George H.W. Bush, 1991

The commentary was prepared with the help of Professor Iwan Morgan of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London.

The most commonly used words are "the" and "of", followed by "to", "and", "in", "a" and "that"- and so on. The word "we" is the 19th most commonly used word, and "government" the 30th. We have omitted the word "states" (32nd most common, used 6,560 times) because it is mostly paired with "united" (40th most common, used 4,900 times).

Other nouns and adjectives omitted include: "year", "years", "great", "time" and "present".