Calling all Languagehats!

June 10, 2004 8:50 PM

Four letter words.Mapped alphabetically to three-space, that is (ie. the 3space axes are the second, third, and fourth letters.) Interesting to see which initial letters tend to map to verbs, which to nouns, and suchlike. A nice example of data visualization.
posted by five fresh fish (11 comments total)

Somehow it just seems like sacrilege to use this for crossword puzzles.
posted by milovoo at 9:23 PM on June 10, 2004

I wonder if this could be changed to allow the axis order to be changed. It might be easier to get a view if trends or whatnot. Also, play with the plus and minus thingers, they do cool stuff with the wireframe.
posted by apathy0o0 at 9:32 PM on June 10, 2004

why?
posted by ChasFile at 10:01 PM on June 10, 2004

Also, despite what dictionaries say, 'xmas' is not a word.
posted by ChasFile at 10:05 PM on June 10, 2004

Interesting. If you set the "time" to C you get a big glob and then one word sticking out alone by itself: czar. It makes sense because it's one of the relatively few words that came into English directly from Russian.

Time E is a bit more puzzling. There are several lone words like 'epic', 'emit', and 'envy' which don't appear to be unusual.

Some other outliers: fizz, gybe, hoaz, and holy. Okay, I'll stop now...
posted by toothless joe at 10:29 PM on June 10, 2004

Also, despite what dictionaries say, 'xmas' is not a word.

Sure it is, Chasfile. People use it, and other people know what it means. That's all that's needed for a word to be real, at least until we develop an Académie Anglais.

Language tends to roll through snobbery like it's not there. "xmas" may be an esthetically vulgar contraction, and you can refuse to allow it in your correspondence, but it exists.

I'm not sure how this can be used in a practical sense, but it's sure pretty.
posted by chicobangs at 10:30 PM on June 10, 2004

"Q" is neat to look at, with all the words lining up along "U" on the X axis.
posted by boredomjockey at 2:26 AM on June 11, 2004

f**k > adj. + noun

i'm a simple, simple man...
posted by patgas at 8:15 AM on June 11, 2004

f**k > adj. + noun + verb

I'm a simpler man.
posted by Veritron at 9:53 AM on June 11, 2004

And f**k lines up U & C, so what's the point of the **?
posted by daveg at 8:36 AM on June 12, 2004

oh, I thought you meant funk.

adj - It's a funk band.
noun - I got the funk.
verb - Do you wanna funk?

shut'cha mouth! I'm just talking 'bout funk. can ya dig it?
posted by milovoo at 10:58 AM on June 12, 2004