a picture is worth a thousand words

On the Origin of Words

A portrait of Darwin with the most used words in the book “On the Origin of Species”.

Word list: species (1874), forms (895), natural (874), different (829), one (816), may (657), case (653), many (609), selection (595), can (585), plants (575), varieties (575), organs (570), animals (555), parts (507), two (470), great (422), several (406), conditions (389), distinct (387), thus (384), characters (378), generally (370), period (363), number (360), structure (357), certain (354), groups (351), life (339), existence (334), facts (325), change (320), individuals (314), long (314), much (312), first (307), important (306), see (305), variations (300), crossed (299), common (295), now (292), new (291), produced (289), closely (286), birds (284), time (284), even (279), become (278), developed (277), must (275), inhabitants (274), related (269), instance (262), often (262), large (260), degree (258), domestic (251), flowers (250), mr (250), modification (249), believe (247), breeds (242), islands (242), less (240), widely (233), modified (232), well (231), genera (230), use (230), habits (229), insects (228), state (228), though (228), another (227), formations (227), seeds (226), probably (224), appear (223), far (223), perfect (223), present (222), slight (222), descendants (221), class (219), yet (219), remarked (216), almost (214), living (212), might (212), hybrids (211), like (211), nearly (203), extinct (200), manner (198), parent (198), instincts (197), sterility (196), found (183), effects (182), variability (182), view (182), inherited (181), cause (180), country (180), successive (180), whole (179), vary (178), water (178), intermediate (177), doubt (176), highly (176), supposed (176), increase (175), seems (173), given (172), place (172), genus (171), formerly (169), kind (169)…

There is a huge difference between ‘Species’ and the rest of the words, so I discard it for the spread process but you still can find it in the title with appropiate size.

If you are interesting in the complete list send me an email asking for it and I will send it to you.

Rotated version.

Detail view.

Download PDF JO-D-100325-Darwin (428KB)
Download PDF JO-D-100325-Darwin-Rot (614kB)

7 Responses to “On the Origin of Words”

  1. Jose Llorens says:

    Hey how do you do these kind of images ? theyre amazing, do you use some kind of generator or pick word by word ? cause that seems like a huge work!

  2. […] Here you have my huge collection of words trees. The first one represents the Darwin book “On the Origin of Species”. […]

  3. Adam Perzynski says:

    This is really fantastic. Thanks for sharing your work in this way.

  4. Howdy!
    Alguien en mi grupo ԁe Facebоοk сompаrtіr eѕte ѕitіo web cοn
    nоsotroѕ, аsi que vinе a eсhаrlе
    un vіstazo. Definitivamente еstoy amando а la іnfοrmаcion.
    Estοy marcaԁoгes y se еstа tωittеando a mis seguidoreѕ!
    Eхcelentе blοg у exсelente diѕeñо y estilo.

  5. I may be of interest that in On The Origin of Species Darwin speculated that natural languages evolved in a manner similar to that of natural selection. This was the first use of a Darwinian process to explain subject matter outside of biology.