Are there any tools or online communities that deal with word association? I'm looking for a resource where I could poll for common associations for a particular word. If you do know of such a tool or community, please describe its positives and negatives.
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1I've edited your question a bit. "What kind of tools do you use?" is a very chatty, open-ended question, and wouldn't work well here. Similarly, the details of why you can't ask about word association on Stack Exchange isn't necessary. – Standback Jul 3 '12 at 13:34
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1The kind folks in the English Language & Usage chatroom might also have some ideas on this. – Goodbye Stack Exchange Jul 4 '12 at 16:41
Two resources that sound appropriate are:
Though I can't rule it out, I kind of doubt you'll find existed dedicated communities - I expect very few people are interested in regularly checking into a site for the sole purpose of answering word association requests. On writing forums, you might find some people happy to do you a favor by answering, but your requests will probably not be the scintillating discussions forums prefer...
What you could do is just collect the words you're interested in, and ask a handful of friends to give you some associations for each. Simple, friendly, and 100% human.
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Thanks. I found similar sites myself before posting on here but I was hoping to get associations from humans, not a database… I guess my best bet is to find a writers' forum. – bernk Jul 3 '12 at 14:49