Here is an interesting study of language usage related to coal by a group of data scientists:

It’s easy to say that coal carries political weight in America, but who actually talks about “coal” in Washington — and why? Using a huge trove of the public statements of members of Congress, we crunched the data from 2010 through mid-2014 to find out.

And what did they find?

The first thing we learned is that "coal" is strongly partisan. Other energy terms we have looked at — even “fracking” and “oil” — tend to be used by both parties more or less evenly. Coal, however, skews very strongly Republican . . . . In fact, Republicans use the word “coal” more than twice as frequently as Democrats, likely reflecting the current domination of the coal debate by the GOP.

The scientists then examined the context -- they looked at all of the words that were used with "coal"during the 113th Congress. Looking at the frequency of usage between the two parties created a list of the 10 most frequently used Republican and Democratic words with coal. Here's their chart:

The two lists suggest two different world views - at least on this issue, there is a clear difference between the two parties.

Since we're never more than 3 or 4 days from a "war on coal" editorial in the local "newspapers," I'm anxious to apply these lists to the next editorial/Myer column. If I were setting odds, I would list the over/under at 9 and 1/2 from the Republican list of words. (A perfect score of 10 won't surprise me.)