follow vs govern

follow

verb
  • To understand, to pay attention to. 

  • To walk in, as a road or course; to attend upon closely, as a profession or calling. 

  • To subscribe to see content from an account on a social media platform. 

  • To live one's life according to (religion, teachings, etc). 

  • To carry out (orders, instructions, etc.). 

  • To be a logical consequence of something. 

  • To watch, to keep track of (reports of) some event or person. 

  • To go or come after in a sequence. 

  • To go after; to pursue; to move behind in the same path or direction, especially with the intent of catching. 

noun
  • In billiards and similar games, a stroke causing a ball to follow another ball after hitting it. 

  • The act of following another user's online activity. 

govern

verb
  • To exercise a deciding or determining influence on. 

  • To require that a certain preposition, grammatical case, etc. be used with a word; sometimes used synonymously with collocate. 

  • To control the actions or behavior of; to keep under control; to restrain. 

  • To make and administer the public policy and affairs of; to exercise sovereign authority in. 

  • To control the speed, flow etc. of; to regulate. 

  • To have or exercise a determining influence. 

  • To exercise political authority; to run a government. 

noun
  • The act of governing 

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