<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>From the TidBITS newsletter. I haven't had time to explore Wordnik very much, but it looks like fun.</div><div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div>Robyn</div><div><br></div><div>------------------------------</div><div><br></div>Wordnik Encourages Word Exploration<br>-----------------------------------<br> by Jeff Carlson <<a href="mailto:jeffc@tidbits.com">jeffc@tidbits.com</a>><br> article link: <<a href="http://db.tidbits.com/article/10377">http://db.tidbits.com/article/10377</a>><br><br> Despite being packed with information, dictionaries receive scant<br> attention these days. You look up a word to check its spelling or<br> definition, maybe skim its etymology, and then return to what you<br> were doing. But if you consult the Wordnik Web site, you could<br> easily find yourself embarking on a languorous exploration of the<br> English language.<br><br><<a href="http://www.wordnik.com/words/etymology">http://www.wordnik.com/words/etymology</a>><br><<a href="http://www.wordnik.com/">http://www.wordnik.com/</a>><br><<a href="http://www.wordnik.com/words/languorous">http://www.wordnik.com/words/languorous</a>><br><br> Wordnik provides definitions from the American Heritage Dictionary<br> of the English Language, Fourth Edition; the Century Dictionary;<br> WordNet 3.0; and the GNU version of The Collaborative International<br> Dictionary of English. Synonyms and antonyms are pulled from Roget's<br> II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition, and Allen's Synonyms and<br> Antonyms. Definitions from Webster's Unabridged 1913 edition also<br> occasionally make appearances.<br><br><<a href="http://www.global-language.com/CENTURY/">http://www.global-language.com/CENTURY/</a>><br><<a href="http://wordnet.princeton.edu/">http://wordnet.princeton.edu/</a>><br><<a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/webster/">http://www.ibiblio.org/webster/</a>><br><br> There's much more to a word than its definition, of course, and<br> Wordnik supplements the basic information in several additional<br> ways. Most prominent are examples of the word in use, pulled from<br> titles available from Project Gutenberg. Passages appear at the<br> top-left corner of the page, providing the word in several contexts.<br> I think this approach is a great idea, because a definition alone<br> may not always give you a sense of how the word is used.<br><br><<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page">http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page</a>><br><br> Wordnik also includes audio pronunciations read by a deep-toned man<br> from American Heritage. If you create a free Wordnik account, you<br> can record your own pronunciations (as well as take other actions<br> such as adding notes and suggesting related words). I noticed that<br> kerfuffle didn't have a pronunciation, so I recorded one. (I also<br> realized after consulting Wordnik that I'd always pronounced it<br> "kerfluffle" with an extraneous L in the middle.)<br><br><<a href="http://www.wordnik.com/words/kerfuffle">http://www.wordnik.com/words/kerfuffle</a>><br><br> A Statistics graph, when available, displays the frequency a word<br> has been used each year dating back to 1800, with an indication of<br> how unusual its usage was for that year. Wordnik appears to be doing<br> the calculating itself, but it's unclear where the source data is<br> coming from.<br><br><<a href="http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2009-06/wordnik_stats.png">http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2009-06/wordnik_stats.png</a>><br><br> For a more modern take, Wordnik grabs real-time examples of the word<br> from Twitter, as well as images from Flickr that contain the word as<br> a tag. The site also tells you how many times a word has been looked<br> up, which is a neat indication of which words people are using or<br> exploring. And, no doubt because it's possible, some words include<br> anagrams and their point values in Scrabble.<br><br><<a href="http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2009-06/wordnik_twitter.png">http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2009-06/wordnik_twitter.png</a>><br><br> Although Wordnik claims a database of 1.7 million words, many words<br> are bound to not appear (or are not recognized as real words).<br> Instead of putting up a generic "word not found" error page, Wordnik<br> uses its tools to locate instances of the word online. Even if you<br> can't suss out the precise definition, the additional context can be<br> a ginormous help in determining its meaning. This approach can also<br> apply to people: "jeff carlson" displays recent appearances of my<br> name in Twitter plus two photos from Flickr.<br><br><<a href="http://www.wordnik.com/words/suss">http://www.wordnik.com/words/suss</a>><br><<a href="http://www.wordnik.com/words/ginormous">http://www.wordnik.com/words/ginormous</a>><br><<a href="http://www.wordnik.com/words/jeff%20carlson">http://www.wordnik.com/words/jeff%20carlson</a>><br><br> You also have to admire a service that openly discloses its plans<br> for world domination in its FAQ: "We figure that once we have at<br> least some information for every word in English, updated in real<br> time, world domination will just fall in our laps." Somewhat oddly<br> in light of their baldly stated plans for world domination, the<br> Wordnik folks don't currently have specific plans to add languages<br> other than English, though their PR representative said they were<br> "excited to explore those options."<br><br><<a href="http://www.wordnik.com/pages/faq">http://www.wordnik.com/pages/faq</a>><br><br> Wordnik proves you don't have to be a lexicographer or vocabulist to<br> appreciate and play with language. But be careful, because you could<br> find yourself happily absorbed in the site for hours.<br><br><<a href="http://www.wordnik.com/words/lexicographer">http://www.wordnik.com/words/lexicographer</a>><br><<a href="http://www.wordnik.com/words/vocabulist">http://www.wordnik.com/words/vocabulist</a>><br></body></html>