Language Sites on the Net

For those of you who, like me, are heels over head in love with the English language, there are many places on the Net your love may be requited. This is not a definitive list, and it will continue to grow as I unearth more sites.
If you’ve found a verbivorous site you would like to share, send me a message under the Ask Richard tab. Your favorite language haven may find its way onto this listing.

English on YouTube

There are some great — and some terrible — videos on YouTube about the English Language. I’ve added a few of the more interesting ones here.

• Grammar Police – a very funny advertisement for MyGrammarLab. Normally, I don’t promote businesses on my site, but this was too good to leave off.
• History of English in 10 Minutes – from Open University, but this deserved a link of its own.
• Merriam-Webster Online – some terrific short videos on questions dealing from etymology to the difference between “affect” and “effect.”
• Open University – an England-based organization that makes their resources available for free. There are some very well done videos that deserve exploring.
• Oxymorons – from The Brothers Winn series What You Ought to Know. There are a few others, including the word “Ironic” and how “Spelling Matters.”
• Palindromes Are Really, Really Fun – a cute video from BuzzFeed.
• Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography – Language – The brilliant and articulate Stephen Fry on the joy of the English language above adherence to grammar rules.

Etymology

• An Etymological Dictionary of Classical Mythology – English words whose origins reach far back.
• Etymologically Speaking – list of some curious word origins.
• Focusing on Words – vocabulary development and etymology.
• Martha Barnette’s Learn a New Word – A few hundred of her favorite words and their origins.
• Online Etymological Dictionary – This is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English.
• Pandora’s Word Box Desktop Encyclopedic Word Etymology and Mythology – Mythology and etymology notes, comments and reflections.
• Ye Olde English Sayings – some romantic but dubious and some authentic phrase origins.
• Urban Legends: Language – language is itself a source of folklore. Find out some of the myths here.
• The Word Detective – a master word sleuth tracks down word and phrase origins.
• Wordorigins.org (formerly Dave Wilton’s Etymology) – full of folklore and historical lessons.

Grammar & Usage

• Apostrophe Protection Society – aims to preserve the correct use of this currently much abused punctuation mark
• Dr. NAD’s Prig Page. – tests of grammar, usage, spelling, punctuation, and style
• EnglishGrammar.org – Grammar lessons, exercises, and rules for everyday use
• Gallery of ”Misused” Quotation Marks – They’re quotation marks, and they turn up in the strangest of places.
• The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation – Jane Straus’ on-line reference guide and workbook.
• Grammar Bytes! – An interactive grammar review with definitions and exercises.
• Grammar and Usage for the Non-Expert – solves common problems of grammar and usage for people who want answers but not a lot of technical explanations.
• Grammar Slammer–Online Demo and Complete English Grammar Resource – the help file that goes beyond a grammar checker
• Guide to Grammar and Writing – from Prof. Charles Darling.
• Fowler, H. W. 1908. The King’s English. – Project Bartleby’s (Columbia University) on-line edition.
• Guide to Grammar and Style – by Jack Lynch
• Punctuation Made Simple – discussion of several of the most useful punctuation marks
• That’s Right Words articles – grammars information and hints
• Spell Check Online – Fix your grammar and spelling errors online.
• THE SLOT: A Spot for Copy Editors – a guide to the many things that can go wrong in print.
• Strunk, William. 1918. The Elements of Style. – Project Bartleby does it again with another of the classics.
• World Wide Words – Michael Quinion writes on international English from a British viewpoint.

Language Blogs/Online Magazines

• Apostrophe Abuse – Links and visuals illustrating an orthographic pet peeve
• “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks – Making fun of bad punctuation since 2005
• David Crystal‘s Blog – an expert on the evolution of the English language
• Take Our Word for It – discover the origins of English words via this weekly webzine.
• Verbatim Magazine – popular magazine devoted to all aspects of the English language.
• The Vocabula Review – examines the state of the English language; published on the third Tuesday of each month.
• The Web of Language – Dennis Baron’s go-to site for language and technology in the news
• Word F u g i t i v e s – an interactive column by The Atlantic Unbound‘s Barbara Wallraff.
• Words & Stuff – a column on words and wordplay by Jed Hartman. It has not been updated since 2007, but some nice columns are available in the archive.
• Arnold Zwicky’s blog – Arnold Zwicky, Visiting Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University, writes mostly about language

Linguistic Links

• Ask a Linguist – a place where anyone interested in language or linguistics can ask a question and get the response of a panel of professional linguists.
• The Eclectic Company – Language & Linguistics – many terrific linguistic links from John Lawler at the U of Mich.
• The LINGUIST List – a comprehensive list of linguistic riches.
• Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics – explores the many facets of logology.

Puns

• Preserve the Pun Society – an organization whose members believe a good pun is like a good steak — a rare medium well done.
• David Gross Entertainment — Punmaster™ Comics – graphic humor.
• Pun-A-Day
• Puns Galore – Puns, puns, and more puns
• Thinks.com: Tom Swifties – Adverbial puns such as, “‘Give me a haircut,’ Tom said barbarously.”

Reference

Dictionaries & Thesauri

• Bibliomania – you can find fully searchable copies of your favorite language reference books, including dictionaries, books of quotations, synonyms, thesaurus, and literary sources.
• Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable – Giving the Derivation, Source, or Origin of Common Phrases, Allusions, and Words That Have a Tale to Tell.
• Dictionary.com – dictionaries, thesauri, tools, games, translators, etc.
• An English Homophone Dictionary – each homophonic set is listed in alphabetical order.
• I Love Languages (formerly known as The Human-Languages Page) – language related Internet resources.
• Model Language Index – select from Anglo-Saxon Computerese to Shorthand.
• Merriam-Webster – resources from the distinguished dictionary and reference book company.
• The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form – THIRTY THOUSAND (!!!) limericks and more pouring in every day.
• One Look – 2468774 words in 629 dictionaries indexed.
• Reverse Dictionary – OneLook’s reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept.
• THE RhymeZone Rhyming Dictionary – a nice tool that allows not only exact rhymes, but definitions, synonyms, homophones, and semantic siblings.
• Thesaurus.net – NEW – a search engine which offers synonyms, antonyms, definitions, other information about the word you enter.
• Visual Thesaurus – an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related words.
• The Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus – an integrated English Dictionary and Thesaurus.
• Your Dictionary.com – Access to more than 1500 online dictionaries representing 230 languages. Some dictionaries are in specialized fields; some offer translation.

Slang and Dialects

• 60s Slang – slang from the flower children era, plus a link to surfer slang.
• American Slanguages – choose a city and find out how to talk like the locals.
• Gangster Slang – Cheat sheet to hardboiled gangster slang from the 1940s and 1950s.
• Internet Slang Translator – Confused by net slang? Can’t read a text message? Translate internet slang and acronyms.
• Rap Dictionary – Wiki and online dictionary for rap and hip-hop slang. Terms are organized alphabetically and by type.
• Slang City – American slang.
• SlangSite.com – is a dictionary of slang, webspeak, made up words, and colloquialisms.
• Urban Dictionary – urban and rap slang.

Other Language Reference Links

• AmeriSpeak – Expressions of our American ancestors.
• The Book of Cliches – a compilation of common phrases, euphemisms, and rationales for times of trouble.
• Cliche Finder – 3,300 clichés indexed.
• Database of American Proprietary Eponyms – general term used to describe from what or whom something derived its name.
• The Eggcorn Database – An Eggcorn is an incorrect yet particularly suggestive creation of a word. For example; eggcorn instead of acorn.
• English Through the Ages – a quick tour of the changes in the English language.
• Eponyms– alphabetical listing of eponyms and their origins.
• fonetiks – online language laboratory
• Phobia List – It’s enough to give you hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (fear of long words). Features a reverse phobia list where you can look things up the thing feared.
• Phrase Finder – does for phrases what a thesaurus does for words.
• Purdue University On-line Writing Lab – handouts from Purdue University.
• Using English – resource for teachers of English is schools and ESL programs.

Word Games

• Etymologic – 10 randomly selected etymology (word origin) or word definition puzzles to solve
• HoadWorks Puzzles – Home Page – a repository of the word games featured on the author’s Wordly-l listserver.
• Puzzability – an interesting variety of weekly puzzles by former editors for Games magazine.
• Michael Curl’s Puzzles and WordPlay – Tom Swifties, anagrams, trivia, puzzles,etc.
• Syndicate.com – recreational and educational word puzzles.
• Vocabulary.com – vocabulary puzzles and games.

Word and Letter Play

Anagrams

• The Anagram Engine – powerful free anagram generator and anagram solver.
• AnagramGenius – the self-described definitive anagram site.
• Anagram.com – Formerly Anagram Insanity. Type in a word or phrase and the computer will find anagrams for your selection.
• Anagrams.net – hundreds of anagrams, that will raise a few smiles and eyebrows.
• I, Rearrangement Servant – discover the wisdom of anagrams.
• Andy’s anagram solver – multilingual anagrams in English, French, and Dutch.

Oxymora

• Ethan’s Oxymorons Page – Long list of oxymorons that we can all agree to disagree on.
• Oxymorons.info – Oxymorons categorized by subject, as well as quotes.

Palindromes

• The Palindromist Magazine – a journal For people who WRITE – and read – palindromes
• Zo’s Palindromes – a site with more than 3,000 palindromes.

Other Wordplay

• Anguish Languish – the versatile and flexible English language.
• Barrel Full of Words – a collection of over 2,000 English words and phrases in humorous context.
• Chiasmus.com – a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases.
• Fun-with-words.com – dedicated to amusing quirks, peculiarities, and oddities of the English language: wordplay.
• The Heteronym Homepage – words that are spelled identically but have different meanings when pronounced differently.
• Ladle Rat Rotten Hut – listen to the story of Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.
• Mixed Metaphors – to delight and amaze you
• triplehom.com – a site devoted to triple homophones.
• A.Word.A.Day Home Page – the music and magic of words.
• The Word Weenie – puns, parodies, bloopers and other language laughs
• The Word Wizard – takes you on a magical tour across language.

Word Watching & Vocabulary Development

• 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words – “mispronunciation” is among them.
• Lake Superior State University’s Banished Words – NEW – annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.
• Banned for Life – Media clichés.
• BuzzWhack – Dedicated to de-mystifying buzzwords.
• The Collective Noun Page – You’ve heard of a herd of antelope, but have you ever encountered a blessing of unicorns or a brace of orthodontists?
• The Hartman Reader Page – Things Useful To The Educated Reader or to Those Wishing to Become More So.
• Luciferous Logolepsy – Dragging obscure words into the light of day.
• The Meaning of Liff – the world is littered with thousands of spare words which spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts pointing at places.
• Pseudodictionary – become part of an actual online dictionary! slang, webspeak, colloquialisms.
• Spelling it Right – Help, exercises and advice
• Learning Vocabulary Can Be Fun – vocabulary games for K-12 and ESL students.
• The Phrontistery – Word lists on various topics
• The Word Police – As a certified Word Police officer, you will be entitled to issue Grammar Citations when you see or hear crimes against the language.
• Word Quests – A rich source of links to English words that are derived from Latin and Greek sources.
• Word Spy – devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases.
• worthless word for the day – a new “obscure, abstruse and/or recondite word” defined each day.