A Picture is Actually Worth 50,123 Words

11 wisdom from the crowd — Confirmed (Or NOT) by Google Books Ngram

Thanks to Google Books Ngram, we’re finally able to perform a meta-study of proverbs and idioms. Is it water under the bridge now, or can we still benefit from the crowd’s wisdom? Let us check!

1. A picture is worth a thousand words

It might have been the case when pictures first appeared in 1827, but right now, based on 2019 data,

a picture is worth 50,123 words.

Screenshot by author

2. Better safe than sorry?

Nope, not anymore. Not since 2014 anyway.

Screenshot by author

3. No Pain no Gain

Till 1996 life was easy; less than one pain was needed to get one gain. Almost 23 years later, as of 2019, you need 2.45 pain for one gain. This trend must be correlated with the success of CrossFit workouts. Let us hope it will reverse soon.