Howjsay.com is a unique online speaking dictionary that offers clear pronunciations of
English words,
phrases,
slang terms,
technical terms,
brand names,
proper names,
profanity, and
many foreign words, including
common variations and
alternatives. Astoundingly, the sound files
are not computer-generated -- every single one of the site's
138,152 entries are enunciated in the dignified tones of British academic and polyglot
Tim Bowyer, who has
steadily expanded its glossary over the years using logs of unsuccessful searches and direct user suggestions. The site is part of Bowyer's
Fonetiks.org family of language sites, and is also available as
a browser extension and as a mobile app for
iPhone/iPod and
Blackberry.
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 23, 2010 -
27 comments
Climate change and the vuvuzela leave mark on Oxford Dictionary of English. Other words and phrases introduced for the latest edition include 'toxic debt', 'staycation', 'cheesebal' and 'national treasure'. To balance them out among the 2,000 or so new items there are a few more left-field choices.
Among them are 'cheeseball', which refers to someone or something lacking taste, style or originality, and the more disturbing phenomenon of 'hikikomori', the Japanese word for the acute social withdrawal that occurs in some teenage boys.
posted by Fizz
on Aug 19, 2010 -
18 comments
The Dictionary of Coming to Terms with the Past (
Wörterbuch der 'Vergangenheitsbewältigung') examines over 1,000 German words that have Nazi connotations, such as
Endlösung (Final Solution) and
Selektion, It is featured in a
review by der Spiegel. Such loaded words still constitute a minefield for Germans today, as the Archbishop of Cologne
discovered last year in a situation
analogized to Senator Biden's use of the term "articulate" when referring to Senator Obama.
[more inside]
posted by Rumple
on Feb 17, 2008 -
49 comments
American Sign Language Flash Video Dictionary is a high quality, free dictionary with a huge number of signs. It includes specialized dictionaries of religious signs, conversational phrases, and ASL for babies. Unfortunately it's not possible to link to specific signs, but if you look inside you'll find words from "Abbreviate" to "Zoom" and phrases such as "I cannot fasten my belt," "has he been neutered?" "I already took a bath," "are you married?" and "I need a better firewall."
posted by alms
on Jul 25, 2007 -
17 comments
Were you a
minger, sporting a
mullet, looking a bit
naff when you were getting
mullered while out
on the pull, anytime before 1988? Or were you
posh and
minted, looking
snazzy after spending your
dosh to get a
nip and tuck before 1980? If so, the Oxford English Dictionary and the
BBC need you for their
Wordhunt – a call to help find the earliest verifiable usages of a
list of words from the past decades whose origin is still uncertain.
posted by funambulist
on Jan 9, 2006 -
28 comments
Merrian-Webster open dictionary "Have you spotted a new word or a new sense for an old word that hasn't made it into the dictionary yet? Well, here's your chance to add your discovery (and its definition) to Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary"
posted by robbyrobs
on Dec 11, 2005 -
22 comments
Ka-BOOM! :: A Dictionary of Comicbook Words on Historical Principles, Based on the Latest Conclusions of the Most Dubious Wordologists & Comprising Many Hundreds of New Words which Modern Literature, Science & Philosophy have Neglected to Acknowledge as True, Proper & Useful Terms & Which Have Never Before Been Published in Any Lexicon
posted by anastasiav
on Nov 21, 2005 -
17 comments
Is your favorite
swear word losing its
potency? Stock up on some new ones with the
Swearsaurus, a "
vast array of swearing, profanity, obscenity, blasphemy, cursing, cussing, and insulting in a massive 165 languages"
posted by Quartermass
on Feb 27, 2005 -
21 comments
If you don't like dictionary posts, look away, NOW!
But if you like to play with words, the dictionarians at
Merriam-Webster have announced the winners in their poll for the
Ten Favorite Words for 2004:
defenestration,
serendipity,
onomatopoeia,
discombobulate,
plethora,
callipygian,
juxtapose,
persnickety,
kerfuffle and
flibbertigibbet
Also, a list of runners-up with more of my personal faves: oxymoron, copacetic, curmudgeon, conundrum,
euphemism, superfluous, and of course, Smock! Smock! Smock!
[more inside]
Via vidiot.
posted by wendell
on Jun 12, 2004 -
41 comments
Dictionary of the Scots Language. The two major historical dictionaries of the Scots language, the
Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST) and the
Scottish National Dictionary (SND), have been combined into one searchable online edition:
Thus, information on the earliest uses of Scots words can be presented alongside examples of the later development and, in some cases, current usage of the same words. In this way, we hope that the DSL will allow users to appreciate the continuity and historical development of the Scots language. By making the DSL freely available on the Internet, we also aim to widen access to the source dictionaries and to open up these rich lexicographic resources to anyone with an interest in Scots language and culture.
posted by languagehat
on Apr 2, 2004 -
13 comments
McDonalds CEO Puts McJob in Mainstream. By taking Merriam-Webster to task for including
McJob ("low paying and dead-end work") in its latest Collegiate Dictionary, McDonald's CEO Jim Cantalupo has ensured that yet another disparaging fast-food web-fed meme joins the venerable "You want fries with that?" If this had been Fox, I would have said it was intentional.
posted by mischief
on Nov 8, 2003 -
39 comments
Do Most Of You Yanks Really Understand What The Brits Here Are On About? Although the cultural mistranslations are probably more a question of tone and habits of irony and understatement, Jeremy Smith's online
American·British
British·American Dictionary, to be published next September, might be of some assistance. Although I still prefer Terry Gliedt's older but pithier
United Kingdom English For The American Novice and even Scotsman Chris Rae's
English-to-American Dictionary. Here's a little BBC
quiz to test your skills. It seems that
Canadians,
Australians and [
another cute quiz coming up!]
New Zealanders are the only Metafilterians to completely capture all the varieties of English usage here. Perhaps it all comes down to the fact that non-U.S. users know much, much less about England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand et caetera than vice-versa? Does anyone else get the occasional feeling we're not exactly speaking the same language here?
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Apr 5, 2003 -
66 comments
Dungeons and Dragons, bigorexia, arse-licker, bass-ackward... The online OED (Oxford English Dictionary) quarterly adds a host of new words to the canon of what has become the standard dictionary of the english language(s). Some of the new and spicey words are: arsehole, arseholed, arse-lick,arse-licker, ass-backward,
ass-backwards, bass-ackward, bass-ackwards, dragon lady,
Dungeons and Dragons, telenovela, and transgenderist!!
Thank the gods of language for these new words! So what is you favorite new word and why?
posted by mfoight
on Mar 17, 2003 -
26 comments
Worthless Word for the Day. Ever feel as if an "obscure, abstruse and/or recondite word" was forced into a newspaper/magazine/quote? Now there's a site that finally finds and provides wwftd! Impress your friends.
posted by geoff.
on Oct 21, 2002 -
13 comments
Jedi (n) and Klingon (n) will now be listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. As will
Ass-Backward. Given
MetaFilter's interest in grammar this seems worth noting. How the editors decided that "Jedi" is worth inclusion but "Stormtrooper" is not is a conversation I would have loved to have heard. Naturally, people complaining about such inclusions
ain't new. However, when words are removed from the same dictionary
it's hardly noticed. Clearly unused words go away, so why do people make a stink about this year after year? Slow news cycles? Or is it an extension of the
Prescriptivist - Descriptivist Argument with the Prescripts making a push for the "hearts and minds" of the public?
posted by herc
on Sep 26, 2002 -
35 comments
The Nonverbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs, & Body Language Cues. Items in this Dictionary have been researched by anthropologists, archaeologists, biologists, linguists, psychiatrists, psychologists, semioticians, and others who have studied human communication from a scientific point of view. What exactly does it mean when someone touches their face, licks their lips, or dodges their eyes? You'll find the answers in this huge compendium. I spent a whole summer reading through this whole thing, and it's helped to give me a new lens with which to view human nature. The most complete collection of body language you'll ever come across.
posted by Mach3avelli
on Apr 12, 2002 -
10 comments
Emoticons creep closer to being officially considered writing
You have to scroll down a ways ... I don't mean to sound elitist. I believe language is a living thing, and can grow and change and grow up to be a ballerina, if it wants to, even if that seems like an innocent child's dream right now, and is not to be taken seriously really. Seriously though, don't you have a kind of sick feeling that a version of the OED is giving recognition to the idea that punctuation and numerals are making entry into language?
posted by rschram
on Jul 13, 2001 -
15 comments
Not Dubbing the Simpsons The Office de la langue française and others are up in arms (
ils capotent) about anglicisms in Internet discourse.
Business 2.0 talked about it. Branchez-Vous writes a short, cutting
article, giving those who pepper their French with English enough rope to hang themselves. («
Dans la catégorie "Un
mot français, un mot anglais et hop!," le prix revient à Rational Software France, the e-development company, qui a annoncé la nomination d'André Arich au poste de Partner Manager pour sa filiale française, ainsi que le lancement en France du programme de partenariat Rational Unified Partner Program (RUPP).») ¶ Strangely, French has a nicer word for E-mail than English does:
courriel.
(
Grand Dictionnaire is the
OLF's official bilingual tech dictionary.)
posted by joeclark
on Jan 5, 2001 -
14 comments
