> upvar<-rnorm(10)+seq(1,1.9,by=0.1)
> plot(upvar,pch=1,col=3,axes=F)
> box()
> axis(at=2)
> axis(1,at=1:10,labels=F)
> nnames<-c("one","two","three","four","five","six","seven","eight","nine","ten")
> mtext(nnames,1,at=1:10,line=rep(c(1,2),5))
First plot the data with no axes at all, then add the box and the ordinate. The
second call to axis() just makes the tick marks where we want them.
I've assigned the labels to a character vector to make it easier to see what's
going on here. mtext() then places the ten labels on alternate
lines, staggering them. You may want to add space for an extra line to the
bottom of the plot if you think it will look better.