let down vs shorten

let down

verb
  • To reduce one's level of effort. 

  • To disappoint; to betray or fail somebody 

  • To soften in tempering. 

  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see let, down. 

  • To allow to descend. 

  • To lengthen by undoing and resewing a hem. 

shorten

verb
  • To reduce or diminish in amount, quantity, or extent; to lessen. 

  • To take in the slack of (a rope). 

  • To reduce (sail) by taking it in. 

  • To become shorter. 

  • To make shorter; to abbreviate. 

  • To make short or friable, as pastry, with butter, lard, etc. 

  • To make deficient (as to); to deprive (of). 

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