Motion chart of verbs followed by ING or TO verb forms from COHA corpus

This chart shows the development of verbs followed by verb-ING or TO verb

This was inspired by a post by Arika Okrent 4 Changes to English So Subtle We Hardly Notice They're Happening

Each bubble stands for a verb. The size of the bubble depends on the verb’s combined frequency in both verb-ING and TO verb constructions. The position of the verb indicates how frequently it occurs in the verb-ING (x axis) or TO verb (y axis) infinitive. The closer a verb gets to the diagonal from the lower-left corner to the upper-right corner of the plot, the more compatible it is with both constructions. The further right a verb goes, the stronger its preference for the verb-ING construction. The further up a verb goes, the stronger its preference for the TO verb construction.

Before you click on play, you may want to adjust playback speed (it’s the button right next to the play button). You may also want to change the display from raw frequencies (Lin) to log-transformed values (Log): this has the effect of spreading the data points and making tendencies easier to spot. [from A motion chart of Captain Kirk’s split infinitive with R and googleVis by Guillaume Desagulier]