POWER VOCAB TWEET. Boost your vocabulary with these fiercely plausible words and definitions. About. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by aniola on Apr 26, 2013 - 19 comments

Wondering about your British colleagues wearing tank tops in chilly weather and complaining about bumf? Trying to figure out what your American colleagues mean by poster child or hump day, or just where exactly kitty-corner is? Lynneguist's Separated By a Common Language will get you sorted. [more inside]
posted by Nomyte on Mar 23, 2013 - 134 comments

An eminent former editor of the Oxford English Dictionary covertly deleted thousands of words because of their foreign origins and bizarrely blamed previous editors, according to claims in a book published this week.
posted by Chrysostom on Nov 29, 2012 - 24 comments

Evocative definitions of colors in Webster's Third New International Dictionary and how they got there. [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead on Aug 17, 2012 - 13 comments

In the late fall of 1965, lexicographer Frederic Gomes Cassidy dispatched a fleet of Word Wagons from a Madison, Wisconsin parking lot. His team of graduate students and volunteers, armed with Cassidy's 1,847-item questionnaire were attempting to compile and decipher all regional dialects and idioms found in America. Cassidy passed away in 2000, but colleagues continued on, and the fifth volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) has been completed. [more inside]
posted by obscurator on Mar 23, 2012 - 18 comments

"Repairing the English Language since 1998." Based on Ambrose Bierce's Original Devil's Dictionary [more inside]
posted by fantodstic on Aug 13, 2010 - 18 comments

Standards editor Philip Corbett at the New York Times (allegedly) issues memo officially discouraging use of the word "tweet." [more inside]
posted by hat on Jun 12, 2010 - 106 comments

Save the Words. Do lost words still have meaning? Just because society has neglected them doesn't make them any less of a word. How do you get lost words back in the dictionary? With lexicographers scanning publications and other communication for words not currently housed in the dictionary, all you need do is use your adopted words as often as possible. Go, Adopt a Word. Like graocracy.* * - government by an old woman or women. [more inside]
posted by Tufa on Jan 29, 2009 - 37 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