Total occurrences - 8795: "I" - 4634 "I'm" - 73 "I'd" - 565 "I've" - 37 "I'll" - 21 "me" - 1143 "my" - 2322 Total words in book - 309431 Percentage - 2.84%
Ronald Reagan, An American Life (1990):
Total occurrences - 10487: "I" - 6027 "I'm" - 140 "I'd" - 499 "I've" - 104 "I'll" - 70 "me" - 1995 "my" - 1662 Total words in book - 265703 Percentage - 3.95%
It turns out conservative icon Reagan used more first-person pronouns in a shorter book. Huh.
EDIT: Adding The Art of the Deal, even though it's a different kind of book and ghostwritten.
Donald Trump & Tony Schwartz, The Art of the Deal (1987):
Total occurrences - 4019: "I" - 2418 "I'm" - 143 "I'd" - 211 "I've" - 75 "I'll" - 4 "me" - 407 "my" - 761 Total words in book - 96860 Percentage - 4.15%
Uh oh...
EDIT2: u/sxales correctly pointed out that Reagan's An American Life was also ghostwritten. Don't know how I missed that, as it's right at the top of the Wikipedia page I linked.
aGiantmutantcrab on November 23rd, 2020 at 19:30 UTC »
So D'Souza is... what, exactly? Who is this individual?
TooShiftyForYou on November 23rd, 2020 at 20:32 UTC »
If you're wondering if this guy might be biased, here are titles of actual books written by Dinesh D'Souza:
2007 - The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11
2010 - The Roots of Obama's Rage
2012 - Obama's America: Unmaking the American Dream
2015 - Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party
2017 - The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left
TheAstrogoth on November 23rd, 2020 at 21:13 UTC »
Dinesh is obviously ridiculous, but I thought it would be fun to compare the occurrence of first person pronouns in Obama's new memoir with Ronald Reagan's 1990 autobiography.
I used countwordsfree.com to get word totals.
Barack Obama, A Promised Land (2020):
Total occurrences - 8795: "I" - 4634 "I'm" - 73 "I'd" - 565 "I've" - 37 "I'll" - 21 "me" - 1143 "my" - 2322 Total words in book - 309431 Percentage - 2.84%Ronald Reagan, An American Life (1990):
Total occurrences - 10487: "I" - 6027 "I'm" - 140 "I'd" - 499 "I've" - 104 "I'll" - 70 "me" - 1995 "my" - 1662 Total words in book - 265703 Percentage - 3.95%It turns out conservative icon Reagan used more first-person pronouns in a shorter book. Huh.
EDIT: Adding The Art of the Deal, even though it's a different kind of book and ghostwritten.
Donald Trump & Tony Schwartz, The Art of the Deal (1987):
Total occurrences - 4019: "I" - 2418 "I'm" - 143 "I'd" - 211 "I've" - 75 "I'll" - 4 "me" - 407 "my" - 761 Total words in book - 96860 Percentage - 4.15%Uh oh...
EDIT2: u/sxales correctly pointed out that Reagan's An American Life was also ghostwritten. Don't know how I missed that, as it's right at the top of the Wikipedia page I linked.