In speech, Obama says everyone “must” do many things

Perhaps it is fitting that the word U.S. President Barack Obama most frequently used during his policy speech on the Middle East and North Africa on Thursday was "people." After all, as he said, it was the people who started the movements blazing across the "region" — the 2nd most used word — and it is the people who must see them through.

It is, however, probably less appropriate than the third most-uttered word in the speech was "must." And even more troubling was how many times those two words were joined in the following order: "people must."

People on the ground in the Middle East and North Africa — as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan — said Obama, meanwhile, "must" do more to support the "people," and were skeptical that his sweeping pronouncements would translate into action. After all, they said, they were expecting many changes after his oft-praised speech in Cairo in 2009, which was aimed at the Muslim world. But they never came, they said.

Click here to see all of the semantic trends from Obama's speech on Thursday and compare those to the trends from his speech in Cairo. One of the least-used words was "face," whatever that means.