Chris Harrison has taken information available from many sources, not the least all the data Google collects and has build a series of graphics showing the path in single words between two opposite words. I would encourage you to take the time to visit the site to understand the full scope of the collection and analyzing of the words. To give you a quick idea that the reporting of the data was no easy task:

“To better achieve a even distribution, I normalized the frequencies of bigrams based on total primary term frequency. So, for example, in the case of war vs. peace, there are 81,839,381 bigrams starting with war and 31,263,375 bigrams starting with peace. If I render the spectrum without normalization, it ends up lopsided toward war (since the usage totals are so much higher). To compensate, I scale down all of war’s bigrams so that the overall frequencies are even.“

The original project was called Word Spectrum, here is a low resolution example of one of the many graphics available. Each graphic on Chris’s site are done as a high def PDF so you can download and examine at your leisure.

As the process continues, Chris rethought the layout of the words and the path of single words leading from one end of a though to the opposite. These are called Word Associations. Again, available to view online or download as PDFs.

Before we get to a check list of what the day holds, and even before anyone works on a project plan – we map out what we are trying to get done and the many parts of what will make our finished deliverable a success.

A great tool to do this is MindMaps. For anyone who is not familiar with MindMaps, think of it as a core deliverable with all of the parts that make it possible spidering out from the center. There are thousands of books on the subject and many software titles available to help. A whiteboard is all you really need to set one up with a group, but software is nice if you need to share or change later.

If you look around on the Internet for MindMapping posts, you will find that people can really get into the process. They put descriptions on each of the spider legs and all kinds of fun drawings. For us, here, let’s keep it very simple and explore what you can say with just one word.

From MindTools:

Mind Maps are more compact than conventional notes, often taking up one side of paper. This helps you to make associations easily. And if you find out more information after you have drawn the main Mind Map, then you can easily add it in.

Mind Maps are also useful for:

* Summarizing information.
* Consolidating information from different research sources.
* Thinking through complex problems.
* Presenting information in a format that shows the overall structure of your subject.

A couple of the better known MindMapping software solutions are: www.thinkbuzan.com and www.mindjet.com/ – they both offer all kinds of videos and instructions.

Information Tamers has a very nice article taking your through the process of simple to very detailed. Not being wrapped around a particular software, the post is about the how and why for using MindMaps.

Since, so many great ideas start when your not at your desktop or in front of a whiteboard, there are a couple nice apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. There are actually about a dozen apps, but these two are ones I actually use because they make it easy to share via a free box.net account (you can also upload to your desktop via your wireless network or email). The outputs can be an image or PDF if you just want to show someone your ideas, or they can be imported into your desktop MindMapping app.

The smaller screens force me to keep the lines to one word. Let’s see if I can stick to that when using the apps on a iPad when it comes out.

iThoughts

iBlueSky

The folks at Healthful Changes have done a nice job of aligning quotes from famous people throughout history to match the Words of Inspiration. A card with one of these quotes may have more of a dramatic impact. You will still know the word that describes the emotion your sending with your message, the reader will understand what your trying to say.

Some of the words expanded with quotes include:
WISDOM
THOUGHTS
SUCCESS
RELATIONSHIPS
POTENTIAL
LEARNING
HOPE
FAITH
ADVERSITY

End Rhymes (blue/shoe)

Last Syllable Rhymes (timber/harbor)

Double Rhymes (conviction/prediction)

Triple Rhymes (frightening/brightening)

Beginning Rhymes (physics/fizzle)

First Syllable Rhymes (carrot/caring)

rhymer.com offers a online search engine for words via their 93,000-word dictionary. They also offer a desktop version of their software for faster reference.

rhyme.poetry.com offers a search engine for rhyming words with a few extras – Organize results by syllables or letters and can include phrases.

A post about rhyming words wouldn’t be complete without a mention of words that can’t be rhymed. Most everyone has heard of Orange and Silver. There is actually quite a list of words over at “List of English words without rhymes”. This page is good to glance at before spend a weekend trying to finish of your poem where you need something that matches up to ‘wolf’ only to find out that there is such word.

Looking around Flickr today, I was overjoyed to discover Raham has taken on the challenge to have a Flickr area of Single Word images. He has 356 images in the group currently, and looks to be growing. While it’s nothing more than a bunch of pictures of words found everywhere in the world, that is what makes it fun!

From Raham about adding to the collection:
The Purpose Of This Group

To collect a large database of photographed single words.
Images of photographed words (not text created with a graphics program, nor screen-captures).

Rules

Images must be of a SINGLE word, cropped so that word fills the image.

“The Big Word Project has been set up by Paddy Donnelly and Lee Munroe, two Masters students from Northern Ireland, who are exploring what different words mean to different people. The project allows you to purchase a word from our list to represent your site. Your site will then represent this word in our list and when people click on it, they will be taken to your site. The project is aimed at changing definitions and creating a new tapestry of words, meaning altogether different things.”

The creators do charge for that single word association which gives me mixed feelings. I can see someone in a school or for a fun project doing this for free. I don’t have an issue with anyone making money and these folks have a effective simplistic site that makes it unique… you decide. Even if you don’t ‘buy’ your word, it’s a site to visit when looking for one word associated with one site.

One site I hit all the time for fun is Learn Something Everyday. In an attempt to keep their fun facts short, they wrap it with a touch of a hand drawing that drives the point home. It is a good example of keeping things simple and one groups attempt to say more with fewer words. Not often a single word, but they get it down to a very few.

While most names are given before a child has a personality or more often before they are even born. Not so much with a pet. Few folks have a name in mind and then search for a pet to match that. Most pet names are descriptive of that pet while a person’s first name is usually a relative or follows a rule like “this name should be hard to shorten into something embarrassing” .

For pet, most often a Cat or Dog, the name may just hit you when you first meet. If that doesn’t happen, here is a great site with many pet names. What I particularly enjoyed is that the site explains where the name came from, what it might mean and most often the sex of the pet it is used with. Fun to look through even if your not having a new family addition.

In case I’m jumping ahead of myself, Word Search does ring a bell right? From Wikipedia: A word search, word find, word seek, word sleuth or mystery word puzzle is a word game that is letters of a word in a grid, that usually has a rectangular or square shape. The object of the game is to find and mark all of the words hidden in the grid. The words may have been placed horizontally, vertically or diagonally. They may have been written backwards or not. Often a list of the hidden words is provided, but more challenging puzzles may let the player figure them out. Many word search puzzles have a theme to which all the hidden words are related.

Today’s computers make it much easier to layout puzzles using any word processor app. Making things even easier is many automated online services available for free. From simple engines that you insert you list of words and out comes a grid of letters to use, to several more advanced options that let you choose outline shape, font, etc…

On the more simple side is the Discovery folks. Not much to customize, but you can just paste your words in on window instead of having to enter each search word one at a time.

Next is Armored Penguin. Not sure about the name of their site, but they offer free Word Search Puzzle generation too. You have to enter each word into a individual box, but they make up for the effort with many many customizable options. If your having a time coming up with a list of words, these folks offer large lists to use too.

Finally, A to Z Teacher Stuff offers a single word entry box and many options to make the puzzle all your own. Their pull down list of puzzle shapes is quite impressive.

With all the tools at hand these days, it’s important to share in the fun! Word puzzles are actually great things to have next to the phone. Tunes the mind and makes being on hold a lot shorter! Have Fun!