You probably know the word association game. It's played with two people; one person says a random word, the second person then has to say the first word that comes into his mind. For example, if I start with the word "dog" you might say "cat", I would say "animal", you might say "mineral" and so on. If you say a word that has come up before, you lose.
find out
What would Shakespeare say?
Word Connection lets you play the word association game game with William Shakespeare. Give Shakespeare a word and he will say the first thing that comes into his head. Some psychologists say that these associations give a valuable insight into a persons views and personality. Given that, who wouldn't want to play this game with William Shakespeare or maybe Captain Picard. Word Connection makes this possible.
So you like the game, but Shakespeare is not your thing? Do you have a favorite person, real or fictional, with whom you want to play the word association game? Maybe you want play with Harry Potter, Captain Ahab, or Winston Churchill. Let me know.
When you type a word, an algorithm finds all the occurrences of that word in the collected works of Shakespeare. The algorithm then looks at all the words that appear near your word. If any of those words appear more frequently then expected, this word must have special significance to Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote nearly 900,000 words (that we know of). This sounds like a lot, but it is barely enough for this project. Sometimes he says something that only makes sense in the context of one of his plays. Shakespeare is a complicated man.