barplot labels in r: issues with displaying rotated labels using text() - r

Question

I want to add labels to the columns of my barplot. Since there are 2 groups each pair of columns will share the same label, i.e 7 labels from "dislike very much" to "like very well".
Since labels titles are quite long I intended to rotate them using the text() function but I cannot get it to display correctly. Here is the code:
A <- c(0, 1, 0, 1, 14, 44, 42)
B <- c(0, 0, 0, 2, 14, 41, 45)
x <- rbind(A, B)
dd.names <- c("Dislike very much", "Strongly dislike", "Dislike", "Neither like nor dislike", "Like", "Like well", "Like very well")
bp <- barplot(x,
beside = TRUE, # Plot the bars beside one another; default is to plot stacked bars
space=c(0.2,0.8), # Amount of space between i) bars within a group, ii) bars between groups
legend = c("Fish cake containing sugar kelp", "Control fish cake"),
args.legend = list(x = "topleft", bty = "n", inset=c(0.1, 0.1)), # bty removes the frame from the legend
xlab = "",
ylab = "Number of scores",
ylim = range(0:50), # Expand the y axis to the value 50
main = "Score results from taste experiments of fish cakes")
text(bp, par("usr")[1], pos = 1, offset = 2, labels = dd.names, adj = 0.5, srt = 25, cex = 0.8, xpd = TRUE)

Answer 1

IMO you're better off rotating the graph.
par(mar=c(3,8,1,1),mgp=c(1.5,.5,0))
bp <- barplot(x,
beside = TRUE,
space=c(0.2,0.8),
legend = c("Fish cake containing sugar kelp", "Control fish cake"),
args.legend = list(x = "bottom", bty = "n", inset=c(0.1, 0.1)),
ylab = "",
xlab = "Number of scores",
xlim = range(0:50), # Expand the y axis to the value 50
main = "Score results from taste experiments of fish cakes",
horiz = TRUE)
text(rep(0,length(dd.names)),bp[1,], par("usr")[3], pos = 2,
labels = dd.names, cex = 0.8, xpd = TRUE)
In an unsolicited act of evangelism, here is a ggplot solution.
library(ggplot2)
library(reshape2) # for melt(...)
library(grid) # for unit(...)
gg <- melt(data.frame(dd.names,t(x)),id="dd.names")
gg$dd.names <- with(gg,factor(dd.names,levels=unique(dd.names)))
ggplot(gg,aes(x=dd.names,y=value))+
geom_bar(aes(fill=variable),stat="identity",position="dodge")+
coord_flip()+
scale_fill_manual(name="",values=c("grey30","grey70"),
labels=c("Fish cake containing sugar kelp", "Control fish cake"))+
labs(title="Score results from taste experiments of fish cakes",
x="",y="Number of scores")+
theme_bw()+theme(legend.position = c(1,0),legend.justification = c(1,0),
legend.key.height=unit(0.8,"lines"))