Which words do you own?–Shameless Words March 30, 2007
Posted by caveblogem in linguistics, Other, statistical analysis, vocabulary.trackback
[Note: This is part of a continuing series on the actual vocabulary in use in the blogosphere. Posts on this subject started here and will continue on a weekly basis.]
There are now 16,425 words in the database, of which 945 were added by the latest blog to be sampled: Shameless Words. I think that’s pretty good at this point, particularly since I had to pull out big chunks of the Italian and French words with which he normally peppers his prose. On the positive side, he added words like zephyr, whip, thug, tapestry, ivory, giddiness, audacious, and others.
I like the word cloud created from words that only Shameless Words used (of the ten blogs now sampled in the database). The word lions comes from a recurring pictorial feature of the blog: Lions of Lyon. Lots of intriguing things going on here, particularly the pig, pistol, robbery, safe part. How can you look at that cloud and not want to go find out what-in-the-hell is going on there? (Do click to enlarge the image)
I find the intersection part of the Venn diagram pretty interesting this time, too. It surprises me a little that, having sampled ten blogs and a total of more than 195,000 words, there are still so many words that everyone has used. All ten blogs had 450 words in common.
The largest words in the intersection were used by Shameless three times more often than the average blogger in the sample (They are sized in relation to one another, rather than on an absolute scale. I’m almost certainly going to have to keep on doing this as words are added to the pool.)
Next up is Grasshopper Ramblings.
Oh, Caveblogem, you are a star. Thank you so much for doing this, and I’m pleased to see that my word contribution count was not 3! I also love the words that only I used … very intriguing! :) This is a wonderful exercise. Can I put the balloons on my blog? I would love to share this! Thanks again.
You are quite welcome, Shameless, I’m glad you like it. Feel free to use the images however you like. Thanks for participating!
Yay, Shameless. To see you adding to this tapestry by whipping up so many new words like an audacious thug fills me with giddiness.
Sorry.
Hey, Moon, I’ll be putting this up on my blog when I’m back to my main computer … I’m in Paris this weekend! The bubbls are great, aren’t they?
I think this is an ingenius way of blogging. Impressive!
Thanks, Canterbury Soul. And thanks for stopping by!