taking the long way vs tortuous

taking the long way

tortuous

adj
  • Twisted; having many turns; convoluted. 

  • Oblique; applied to the six signs of the zodiac (from Capricorn to Gemini) that ascend most rapidly and obliquely. 

How often have the words taking the long way and tortuous occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )