Wordle Til Next Year (8/29/12)

Have you ever heard of a wordle?  Yesterday I learned what a wordle is.  No, it is not a Dr. Seuss character or a children's singing group from Australia.  A wordle, also known as a word cloud is a word map, a collage of different words artfully arranged and sized based on the number of times the word appears on the list.  

Let's say that you asked 100 people to name their favorite Cubs player.  You might get a breakdown that looks like this:

Ernie Banks: 21 votes

Ryne Sandberg: 16 votes

Ron Santo: 12 votes

Billy Williams: 12 votes

Andre Dawson: 10 votes

Mark Grace: 7 votes

Fegie Jenkins: 7 votes

Jodi Davis: 4 votes

Leon Durham: 4 votes

Joe Girardi: 4 votes

Derek Lee: 3 votes

  Yes, those three votes for Derek Lee would be from me.  Hey, I'm from Chicago - vote early and vote often!

Based on the last names you can now weight them to represent the number of votes and create a wordle that might look a little something like this:

Now, if only all those guys still played on the Cubs.  Next year would be here.  Ah well...