Word Cloud and the Presidents.

I have recently joined the micro blogging service Twitter, and although I am just beginning to scratch the surface of it's benefits, rewards have come with every fellow twitter who signs on to follow me. Today's email brought a message that led me to return the request and follow Lewis Shepherd who hosts Shepherdspi. When I visited his blog I found this recent post, 2.0 View of President Obama’s Inaugural Speech.

A word-cloud produced (quickly) by the Los Angeles Times. Befiitting the social-media aspect, the paper published it on Twitter immediately; don’t know if it will even be published as a graphic in the day-old “newspaper” printed and distributed tomorrow. The New York Times, meanwhile, has the same for every previous presidential inaugural address as well - interesting to scroll back and forth to notice trends in presidential intentions.

The NYT's link was of particular interest to me and really got my historical juices flowing. It had produced a word-cloud for every inaugural address from Washington to Obama.

Here a brief overview of what was the most used words for a few of our most noted leaders.

Washingon.........Government, public, country, duty, citizen.

Jefferson............Government, principle, citizen, fellow, man,

Madison..............Nation, public, country, right, war.

Jackson...............Public, government, power, people.

Lincoln................Constitution, law, union, people, government.

Lincoln................War, god, offense, nation, union.

T. Roosevelt.......Nation, life, people, power, great.

F.D. Roosevelt...National, people, help, leadership.

FDR-1941..........Nation, people, spirit, life, democracy.

Kennedy.............Side, world, nation, power, pledge.

Reagan................Government, American, beleive, world.

Reagan 2nd........Government, people world, American.

Clinton................World, America, American, people.

Bush 2001.........Nation, America, citizen.

Obama...............Nation, America, people.

Take the time to visit this interesting link and make yourself familiar with the most frequent words used by our Presidents in their inaugural addresses. Note the commonality of words, that re-appear every four years to offer hope that they understood the respondsiblity placed upon then to guide our nation.