boondoggle vs shakedown

boondoggle

noun
  • A braided ring to hold a neckerchief. 

  • A waste of time and/or money; a pointless activity. 

verb
  • To waste time on a pointless activity. 

shakedown

noun
  • An improvised bed. 

  • Extortion, especially through blackmail 

  • A thorough search; a frisk 

  • A trial or test period, especially of a ship or aircraft 

adj
  • that tests the performance of a ship or aircraft 

How often have the words boondoggle and shakedown occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )