U.S. President Barack Obama delivered his eighth and final State of the Union address on Tuesday, discussing the economy, education, climate change and terrorism among other issues.
And while his message didn鈥檛 deviate significantly from his other speeches, one standout was the brevity of his writing. 鈥淚鈥檓 going to try to make it shorter,鈥� he joked -- and he did. His 2016 transcript came in at just over 5,400 words -- more than 1,200 words short of his average State of the Union address.
But despite that, Obama still clocks in as the second-wordiest president of the past 50 years:
Among those thousands of words Obama has delivered, a few themes have developed. Like nearly every president for the past half century, 鈥淎merica鈥� was the most-frequently uttered word in Obama鈥檚 speeches. But ignoring words like 鈥淎merica,鈥� 鈥淎mericans鈥� and 鈥淪tates鈥� (as well as common words like 鈥渢he鈥� and 鈥渁nd鈥�), Obama most often talked about the theme of employment and the economy -- not unexpected for the president who took power during the 2008 recession.
These standout words highlight each president鈥檚 focuses and challenges during their times in office -- for example, George W. Bush most frequently used the word 鈥淚raq,鈥� while Lyndon B. Johnson used 鈥淰ietnam.鈥�
Here鈥檚 a breakdown of every president鈥檚 State of the Union speech over the past 50 years:
Speech data from . Text analyzed using .
