Posts Tagged ‘inaugural’

Wordle is a fascinating website that allows you to create word clouds out of text. The word clouds give prominence to the words that are repeated the most. A word cloud of President Obama’s inaugural address highlights the words “nation,” “new,” “people,” “world,” and “today.” As a comparison, President Bush’s 2005 inaugural address word cloud highlights the words “freedom,” “liberty,” “one,” and “America;” President’s Clinton’s 1997 inaugural word cloud highlights “century,” “new,” “time,” and “promise ;” and President Lincoln’s second inaugural address in 1865 highlights the nation’s distress at that time with “war,” “union,” “God,” “woe,” and “years.”

Now I know, since you are reading GWW, the anticipation is killing you as you wonder aloud, “What about George Washington’s word cloud?” Calm down- it has been there all along. As you can see in the box above, a word cloud of Washington’s inaugural address on April 30, 1789 in New York City reveals that the words “government,” “every,” “public,” and “present” were on his mind as he wrote the very first inaugural address. But the word that truly demonstrates Washington’s feelings and intentions is “Fellow-Citizens.” George Washington was making it clear to his listeners that the United States would be run through a legitimate system of government and he was a fellow citizen, just like every other person in the new nation. Brings a little tear to the eye…