Word.

Okay, so I now have a new favorite site for killing WAAAAAAY too much time.

But it's so neat. Wordle.net takes a selection of text, the text from a website, or a user on de.licio.us's tags and turns them into an attractive little "world cloud."

Here's an example:



It's from a George Elliot poem about marriage. I did do a little tweaking. The size of the words in the cloud directly corresponds to how many times that word is used in the text given. So, to exaggerate certain words, you can repeat them.

And to keep certain words or phrases together, you can use a tilda (~) -- That's how I got the phrases "joined together," "be one," and "each other" to be so closely placed together. (Seriously, just go fiddle around with it. If you type two words with a tilde in the middle, instead of a space, it'll keep them together.)

And you can print them out, which is cool. You can also save them as PDF files (since you can't save a Java applet as an image ... I don't know why. I'm not a Computer Science major. Though I do have friends and a brother-in-law that are ... so if I REALLY want the run-down of WHY I can't save it as an image, I can get it. For now, I'll just accept it. I don't have to like it, though.)

And there are quite a few fonts to choose from. My favorite is "Loved by the King." It's just pretty.

** Update: Oh, and if you are copying the HTML they give you to post your world clouds somewhere, take out all the spaces. If you don't, the code doesn't work. Gosh, it's a good thing that I've picked up some HTML-speak as I've been on the internet. Comes in pretty handy. Too bad that I'm not fluent in it. Then I'd REALLY be able to spice up this blog, eh?