The philologist’s idea of amusement is like this: playing with web searches and looking which words people use (Whooha, carnival of excitement!).
Do you want to know how people talk about Iraq war? No bother with polls and brainy dudes, Google has it. See, lets ask him (or her?):
- Iraq chaos - 412,000
- Iraq peace - 5,400,000
- Iraq democracy - 2,650,000
- Iraq failure - 374,400
- Iraq success - 1,280,000
- Iraq mistake - 290,000
- Iraq freedom - 5,210,000
- Iraq invasion - 981,000
- Iraq freeing - 835,000
- Iraq plunder - 595,000
- Iraq withdrawal - 640,000
The “freedom speech” seems to be used more often by both supporters and detractors than negative words. I see some “Is Iraq a success?” but less “Is Iraq a failure?” Maybe the “freedom speech” is too strong by itself as a marketing campaign to not to be “bought”, even by those with critic opinions?
It’s indicative that nobody searches for “Iraq Coalition casualties”, which gives:
http://icasualties.org/oif/
By the way, that site has been under attack by fascists.