[Sigia-l] Tag clouds and lexical analysis

[Will Parker]

On Jan 15, 2007, at 6:26 PM, Ziya Oz wrote:
> Will Parker:
>
>> tag-cloud
>
> I'm of two minds about this terminology. As Jonathan pointed out  
> earlier, it
> has come to mean different things. But should we call what's  
> essentially a
> concordance a "tag- cloud" when it's not a matter of tagging,  
> certainly not
> by users? I mean, nothing is being tagged here, is it?

It so happens that at the moment, iTunes is randomly favoring me with  
a selection of John William's Star Wars tunes. The swirling, tension- 
filled choral theme called "Duel of the Fates" from "The Phantom  
Menace" is far, far - FAR - better music than the incessant drumbeat  
of the Imperial March (AKA 'Darth Vader' theme) --- but you just  
can't HUM the bloody Duel melody, and anyone born in North America  
between 1906 and 2003 (INCLUDING the Amish) knows how to do Darth.

My point? You can express more with twelve-part harmony, but  
sometimes you need something that you can just hum.

I certainly see your point regarding the inaccuracy in using 'tag  
cloud' in this case. On the other hand, these _look like_ what we've  
all come to know as a 'tag-cloud', were in fact created using  
software that was designed to create real tag-clouds, and offer a  
ranking of subject matter (or subject words) according to frequency  
of use.

No one has tagged information for easier retrieval, of course, but we  
do have a simple, visual method of determining which subjects were  
important to the writer -- which is the chief innovation of the tag- 
cloud style of data display. (Sorry, totally spaced on getting my two  
cents in on the earlier Tag Clouds In Print thread.)

Unless someone can come up with a similarly memorable -- and more  
importantly, utterable -- term, I'm willing to allow this usage on  
the same grounds that I forgive people who use the term "mouse  
cursor" or just "mouse" when they are referring to the "mouse pointer".

- Will
Will Parker
wparker at ChannelingDesign.com

"The only people who value your specialist knowledge are the ones who  
already have it." - William Tozier