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The real words

Why words are difficult data

A number needs a scale. A word needs far more than an equality test.

  • High dimensionality, 10,000 distinct words and more
  • Correlations: Hong Kong, San Francisco, Bay Area are pairs that belong together
  • Order: April, February, January, June, March, May is alphabetical and wrong
  • Membership: Tennis, Running, Swimming, Hiking, Piano, where one does not belong
  • Hierarchy, antonyms and synonyms, entities

Sorting month names alphabetically is the classic text-chart failure. The words carry an order the computer cannot see.