wordwatching

At the crossroads of language and culture

Dedicated to the study of language variation and change in American English, with special regard to the West, pop lyrics, and social media.

A photo taken at my old school

Be true to your school

February 11, 2016 by Lamont Antieau in lyric analysis

In a rare display of school pride (or total narcissism), the students of Rock and Roll High School, who we haven't visited since they were pop quizzed on the second day of classes, decided they would pit high against other premodifiers of school(s) in songs from Billboard's year-end Top Thirty charts (1951-2015). The spoils? The school with the most frequent premodifier would get bragging rights for the school year.

Hail to the victor:

Fig. 1: Instances of school with premodifiers in songs from Billboard's year-end Top Thirty charts (1951-2015) by number of songs and total number of tokens (Lamont Antieau, wordwatching.org) — Fig. 1: Instances of school with premodifiers in songs from Billboard's year-end Top Thirty charts (1951-2015) by number of songs and total number of tokens (Lamont Antieau, wordwatching.org)

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