Mindless Statistics

[Orlowsky at aol.com]

I'm restlessly recovering from a lingering back injury, so davemarc's
challenge to run a Pynchon search on Nexis sounded like an enjoyably mindless
timekiller for this semi-sidelined lawyer.  The following stats reflect the
number of articles in the Nexis database in which the term "Thomas Pynchon"
(phrased to catch the odd usage of Thomas R. Pynchon and Thomas Ruggles
Pynchon) occurs, by year.  

Nexis contains a large number of "general interest" and legal periodicals in
the English language, including most major daily American newspapers and
magazines, and a smattering of non-U.S. publications.  Keep in mind that it
includes none of the specialized literary journals.  Also keep in mind that
the number of periodicals contained in Nexis has greatly increased over the
years, so the increase in "Pynchon mentions" reflects not only his increasing
pervasiveness in the culture, but also the increasing breadth of the
database.  Finally, I've found Nexis to be all but useless for articles dated
before 1980, and approaches relative comprehensiveness only around 1985.
 I'll leave the statistical interpretation to the rest of you.

Year           Number of articles mentioning Pynchon
pre-1980   31
1980            9
1981          21
1982          23
1984          50  (Slow Learner published)
1985          49
1986          39
1987          42
1988          68
1989          69
1990        271  (Vineland published)
1991        121
1992        139
1993        165
1994        202
1995        158
1996        261
1997          85  (as of April 14)

Mindlessly yours,
Bob