bother vs soften

bother

verb
  • To annoy, to disturb, to irritate. 

  • To do something which is of negligible inconvenience. 

  • To feel care or anxiety; to make or take trouble; to be troublesome. 

intj
  • A mild expression of annoyance. 

noun
  • Fuss, ado. 

  • Trouble, inconvenience. 

soften

verb
  • To undermine the morale of someone (often soften up). 

  • To make something soft or softer. 

  • To palatalize. 

  • To become or make (a consonant) more lenis, to lenite. 

  • To make less harsh 

  • To become soft or softer 

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