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POPSNew Online Dictionary Redefines ‘look it up’
Lexicographer Erin McKean’s interactive ‘Wordnik’ is projected to be the largest online dictionary ever. This week she is slated to launch what may be the biggest revolution in the printed word since, well, printed words. McKean was 8 years old when she decided that when she grew up, she wanted to be a lexicographer – the technical term for a writer or editor of dictionaries. She first found it in her daily scouring of The Wall Street Journal. Her father was a Journal devotee “I think I was really attracted by the fact that it was taking 21 years to make the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary,” she recalls. “I was 8. Twenty-one years was forever.” The lexicography bug stuck, in part because McKean loved language. She was a voracious reader, plowing through her local libraries’ stacks and devouring anything she found at home, she says. “If it was lying around, I read it. If my parents didn’t want me to read it,” she says, “they had to hide it."
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POPSUnderused English Words 19. Widdiful Someone who deserves to be hanged 20. Zabernism The abuse of military power or authority. I wonder how long it will take for this one to show up in the comments.
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POPSHow do you say that? What a great site for word lovers. I'm a reader so often I don't ever hear the pronunciation of a word. Most I get correctly but sometimes am stumped on place names and proper names. This site is just what I was looking for . Sort of like a Wiki for talking. Click on over and check it out.
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POPSHappy Birthday Noah Webster (Oct 16) Webster's suggestion of using "tung" instead of "tongue" didn't stick, though. Today Webster's name is synonymous with dictionaries and the date of his birth is observed as Dictionary Day. In his honor, this week we'll present words about words. As Webster said, "the process of a living language is like the motion of a broad river which flows with a slow, silent, irresistible current."
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POPSSpelling "turely atrosious," says academic i'd like to point out that the words "weird, seize, leisure, foreign and neighbor" that they used as examples all have i AFTER e, and no c in them. so that example of the rhyme was kind of... not... right.
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POPSGods On-Line at Godchecker "Welcome to Godchecker - your Guide to the Gods We have more Gods than you can shake a stick at. Godchecker's Mythology Encyclopedia currently features over 2,850 deities. "Browse the pantheons of the world, explore ancient myths, and discover Gods of everything from Fertility to Fluff with the fully searchable Holy Database Of All Known Gods."
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POPSASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers Asterisk is also called Nathan Hale (mentioned) and here's why: Nathan Hale n. An asterisk (see also splat, ASCII). Oh, you want an etymology? Notionally, from "I regret that I have only one asterisk for my country!", a misquote of the famous remark uttered by Nathan Hale just before he was hanged. Hale was a (failed) spy for the rebels in the American War of Independence. from http://www.elsewhere.org/jargon/jargon.html#Nathan%20Hale
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POPSEngRish = Japanese English More from the site here " 4. The Japanese inability to pronounce various vowel sounds found in the English language. The Japanese language contains only 5 basic vowel sounds: "a" as in "ah", "i" as in "eee", "u" pronounced like "ooo", "e" pronounced like "eh", and "o" pronounced like "oh". Such confusion in vowel sounds can lead to examples like "fack you!" in place of "f*ck you", etc. Grammatical mistakes vary but there are a few common errors that English teachers in Japan see on a daily basis: 1. Using a noun as a verb with "Let's" as in: "Let's beer" or "Let's Kiosk" 2. Redundant wording such as: "Let's play with me!" 3. Dispense with connecting words. Example: "I feel Coke"
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POPS20 Weird English Words 19. Widdiful Someone who deserves to be hanged 20. Zabernism The abuse of military power or authority. I wonder how long it will take for this one to show up in the comments.
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