What's with the word "sardonic" in sci-fi?

Question

OK, this is going to seem to be either a ridiculous question or there is something there.

I have noticed that Asimov is a huge fan of the word "sardonic".   Maybe it's just that I notice it because I wouldn't normally use this word.   Maybe it's just that sci-fi stories lead to greater likelihood of characters being sardonic.

Am I imagining this or does Asimov really use the words "sardonic" and "sardonically" particularly frequently?

I have seen this in Niven and Brin too.    Are they also using this word a lot, and is it under influence (intentional or not) from Asimov?

terdon · Accepted Answer

Oddly enough, you might be right. I ran a search on the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and it turns out that the word sardonic does indeed appear more in sci-fi than in "straight" fiction:

As you can see in the image above, sardonic occurs at a frequency of 3.86 per million in sci-fi/fantasy compared to 2.74 per million in general fiction. That said, the difference is really quite tiny. Sardonic occurs one more time per million, I very much doubt that this is in any way statistically significant.

curiousdannii · Answer

The words sardonic and sardonically were most frequently used just before the period when Asimov began writing. So I'd say he was just using the popular language of the time.

Here's a Google Ngram graph of the word uses.

What's with the word "sardonic" in sci-fi?

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