Q:

How to write upright letters vertically in ggplot2?

How can I write a text annotation in ggplot2 with upright letters going downwards, such as a vertical STOP sign with the S on top of the T, and so on.
My specific application is to make an extract of a few months of a calendar where I want to write the names of the months vertically but with upright letters. If I use 
annotate("text", x=2, y=3, label= "October",  angle = -90)

the letters are rotated as well.  Thank you.

A:

ladder <- function(x) paste(strsplit(toupper(x), split = "")[[1]], sep = "", collapse="\n")

qplot(1,1, geom="blank") +
  annotate("text", label=ladder("why not"), x=1, y=1)

