Howard vs. other celebs in Google Books |
Google’s Ngram Viewer graphs how often a search term appears over time in the text corpus associated with Google Books. Its front page currently displays a graph for the terms Frankenstein, Albert Einstein, and Sherlock Holmes from 1800 to 2000. Note, because Frankenstein is not just the title of an 1818 novel but also a surname, unlike the other two terms, its graph begins with a positive value in the year 1800. If there is one thing that set Howard Stern apart from the crowd during his rise to superstardom, it’s the range of topics he was willing to discuss on the air. One such topic was his celebrity ranking: he liked to compare the “bigness” of his celebrity with that of others. So when I discovered the Ngram Viewer several years ago, I decided to enter head‑to‑head matches between Howard and other celebrities. The results are presented below, including the graphs. |
Howard dominates | Howard close above | too close to call | Howard close below | Howard dominated by |
George Carlin Jon Bon Jovi Carlos Santana Angus Young Bon Scott Denise Richards Jenna Jameson Robin Quivers Jackie Martling |
Jerry Seinfeld Pamela Anderson Ringo Starr Celine Dion Mia Farrow |
Rudy Giuliani Jennifer Lopez Sylvester Stallone Laura Bush Wilt Chamberlain Keith Richards Lenny Bruce |
Johnny Carson David Letterman Barbara Bush Nancy Reagan George Harrison |
Arnold Schwarzenegger Marilyn Monroe Jimmy Carter Jesus Christ John Lennon Paul McCartney Donald Trump Mick Jagger Britney Spears Woody Allen |