Combining vector variables in R expression for plot text

Question

I am trying to create a text layer in an R plot containing normal and superscript text that derives from variables.

So far I have this:

first = c("one", "two", "three")
second = c(1, 2, 3)
plot(1:3, 3:1)
text(1:3, 3:1, labels=first)

The way it works now, it shows one, two, etc on the plot. I want it to show one¹, two², etc.

I guess it should be some combination of expression, paste, bquote and maybe another function. I just can't get it to get it to read the data as vectors and make the proper superscript.

I've seen some questions on this site, for example:

• Combining paste() and expression() functions in plot labels
• Use expression with a variable r
• Including variables in expression call in R

None of them fully answer my question.

Answer 1

May be you can try

 plot(1:3, 3:1)
 text(1:3, (3:1)-0.03, labels= mapply(function(x,y)
      as.expression(bquote(.(x)^.(y))), first, second))