What Are the Most Popular Phrases in THE HUNGER GAMES, TWILIGHT & HARRY POTTER?

By: Nov. 24, 2013
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Timed to the hit release of THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE this weekend, Slate Magazine has done indepth textual analysis (who knew?) on the hit series by Suzanne Collins, and for good measure, ran the same analysis on Stephenie Meyer's TWILIGHT and J.K. Rowling's HARRY POTTER series.

So, what are the most used adjectives? Well, for HUNGER GAMES, it's drunk, good-natured, functional, preliminary, initial, last-ditch, despicable, diagonal, lethal and rich. That does indeed sound like THE HUNGER GAMES to us!

For the angst-ridden TWILIGHT books, the most used adjectives are words like unwilling, unreadable, instinctive, hesitant, wistful and compatible.

And the magic filled HARRY POTTER? Terrified, Open-mouth, gleeful, magical, squashy, spiral and famous.

For the full analysis, click here.

They'd even gone as far as calculating the percentage of all sentence openings (not necessarily the whole sentence) that come from each author's most used opening list:

J.K. Rowling: 2.35 percent
Suzanne Collins: 2.69 percent
Stephenie Meyer: 4.42 percent
In THE HUNGER GAMES - In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games," a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed.
In TWILIGHT, Bella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Bella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Bella, the person Edward holds most dear. Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.
And lastly, Harry Potter has no idea how famous he is. That's because he's being raised by his miserable aunt and uncle who are terrified Harry will learn that he's really a wizard, just as his parents were. But everything changes when Harry is summoned to attend an infamous school for wizards, and he begins to discover some clues about his illustrious birthright. From the surprising way he is greeted by a lovable giant, to the unique curriculum and colorful faculty at his unusual school, Harry finds himself drawn deep inside a mystical world he never knew existed and closer to his own noble destiny.


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