
Ask HN: How would you make a program that finds abstract word associations? - rayalez
Hi! I am facing an interesting problem, and I want to ask for your advice.<p>How would you go about writing a program that finds abstract associations between words?<p>Like if you input &quot;balloon&quot; it would output things like &quot;birthday&quot;, &quot;blimp&quot;, &quot;red&quot;, &quot;soap bubble&quot;, etc. Not synonyms, but the sort of connections human would make.<p>Is that even possible?  I&#x27;d appreciate any hints and ideas.
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dragonbonheur
In a collection of sentences, give each noun and verb a collection consisting
of a score and the string it's being compared to,from that collection get a
random candidate among the elements of that collection with the highest score.

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stray
I'd just make a call to the twin words API.

[https://www.twinword.com/api/word-
associations.php](https://www.twinword.com/api/word-associations.php)

For "balloon", it doesn't return "birthday" but it does return "party"...

{ "entry": "balloon", "request": "balloon", "response": { "balloon": 1 },
"associations": "aeronaut, distensible, inflate, puncture, distension, airman,
aviator, deflate, helium, widen, flyer, bladder, flexible, dilate, rubber,
air, expand, intestine, pilot, swollen, swell, bloat, distend, tire, gas, fly,
gastric, fuse, chemistry, party", "associations_array": [ "aeronaut",
"distensible", "inflate", "puncture", "distension", "airman", "aviator",
"deflate", "helium", "widen", "flyer", "bladder", "flexible", "dilate",
"rubber", "air", "expand", "intestine", "pilot", "swollen", "swell", "bloat",
"distend", "tire", "gas", "fly", "gastric", "fuse", "chemistry", "party" ],
"associations_scored": { "aeronaut": 2.5090246, "distensible": 1.8590211,
"inflate": 1.8082259, "puncture": 1.5352395, "distension": 1.2243819,
"airman": 1.1704121, "aviator": 1.1576922, "deflate": 1.1435689, "helium":
1.1327481, "widen": 1.0731996, "flyer": 0.926951, "bladder": 0.85258925,
"flexible": 0.71675444, "dilate": 0.6800923, "rubber": 0.6176759, "air":
0.61751336, "expand": 0.6171214, "intestine": 0.6049722, "pilot": 0.5919644,
"swollen": 0.54522365, "swell": 0.48640782, "bloat": 0.45009124, "distend":
0.4091111, "tire": 0.35498697, "gas": 0.34756577, "fly": 0.34399426,
"gastric": 0.3329026, "fuse": 0.32793412, "chemistry": 0.29498485, "party":
0.29245383 }, "version": "4.0.0", "author": "twinword inc.", "email":
"feedback@twinword.com", "result_code": "200", "result_msg": "Success" }

