To add, about 2.5% of cases are below -2 and another 2.5% above +2 (specifically 1.96), so long as the original metric is normally distributed (bell shaped). About 68% of cases actually fall between -1 and 1, as most things tend to be close to average. That's true of pretty much any true normal distribution, btw.
It's a neat way to basically say, this isn't a normal amount of phrase usage. It's not a statistical test, though those concepts use a similar approach to probabilities.