Palin: "Also"

Have you noticed that Republican Vice-Pesidential nominee Sarah Palin uses the word "also" more than normal? It certainly seems to be true. And this is borne out by analysis of her debate performance.

Looking at the transcript, we see that Palin spoke 7795 words (more than Biden's 7302). Of those words, 43 of them were "also" (Biden said it thrice). This works out to a usage rate of 5,520 per million. Looking at a corpus of American English, we see that the typical usage frequency in spoken American English is 1,030 per million, making Gov. Palin more than 5 time more likely than you to use the word "also."

Saturday Night Live writers have also picked up on the phenomenon. In their introductory Palin skit, "also" makes three appearances for an astonishing rate of 24,200 per million:

FEY AS PALIN: "Like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this. We're saying, 'Hey, why bail out Fanny and Freddie and not me?' But ultimately what the bailout does is, help those that are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy to help...uh...it's gotta be all about job creation, too. Also, too, shoring up our economy and putting Fannie and Freddy back on the right track and so healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reigning in spending...'cause Barack Obama, y'know...has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans, also, having a dollar value meal at restaurants. That's gonna help. But one in five jobs being created today under the umbrella of job creation. That, you know...Also..."

If you've seen some of the bumbling interview responses, you know that when she starts using the word "also" it is not a good thing. It usually indicates off-message rambling. So, I was curious whether Palin's usage of "also" would increase as debate wore on and her talking points wore out. It seems it did not.