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 on Dec 11, 2005 - View this thread

Charming and unexpected vocabulary from many languages. Why did Persians need a word, alghunjar, to express 'the feigned anger of a mistress'? Could there really have been that many insincere mistresses in Persia? Why does Russia need a word meaning, 'dealer in stolen cats'? Or 'someone with six fingers'? And who can resist the Chinese xiaoxiao, meaning, 'the whistling and pattering of rain or wind'? "These are more than funny foreign vocabularies; they are tiny windows into the way other people live, and the obsessions that drive them." [via]
posted on Oct 2, 2005 - View this thread

If listening to sound of different languages is something you may be interested in, visit the multimedia language project website hosted by the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. It features the sound files of a small blurb from Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince read outloud in a 100 different languages. The blurbs are also textually transcribed. [See more inside]
posted on May 17, 2005 - View this thread

Linguists Gone Wild Linguists from The American Dialect Society and the Linguistic Society of America recently met to vote for the Words of the Year, in various categories—Most Useful, Creative, Unnecessary, Outrageous, and Euphemistic; Most and Least Likely To Succeed; and an overall Word of the Year... no one really cares unless we pretend that These Are Important Words That Define Us as Americans. Still, that's marginally better than the alternate interpretation: This Is How Scholars Waste Their Time When They Could Be Doing Real Work.
posted on Jan 12, 2005 - View this thread

Deconstructing Dude A linguist from the University of Pittsburgh has published a scholarly paper deconstructing and deciphering the word "dude," contending it is much more than a catchall for lazy, inarticulate surfers, slackers and teenagers. An admitted dude-user during his college years, Scott Kiesling said the four-letter word has many uses, all of which express closeness between men in a safely heterosexual manner. How about you? Do you do the dude? If so, does that mean you're white [PDF]?
posted on Dec 8, 2004 - View this thread

Palindromes
::shamelessly stolen from plep::
posted on Jul 24, 2004 - View this thread

Oxymorons
posted on Jul 23, 2004 - View this thread

A Guide to Alternative Handwriting and Shorthand Systems
posted on Jul 5, 2004 - View this thread

Common Errors In English :: an internet guide
posted on Jun 20, 2004 - View this thread

Wordcraft, an on-line community of linguaphiles, best known for its extensive collection of eponyms, has taken on a new and fairly ambitious project -- they're trying to rewrite the entire Oxford English Dictionary -- in limerick form. So far they're only on the a's, but they do seem optimistic.
Shamelessly stolen from languagehat's blog
posted on Jun 18, 2004 - View this thread

"Oh my god! There's an axe in my head"
posted on Jun 15, 2004 - View this thread

Double-Tongued Word Wrester :: Words from the fringes of English
posted on Jun 4, 2004 - View this thread

Forthright's Phrontistery: English word lists and language resources.
posted on May 3, 2004 - View this thread

Ask A Linguist is designed to be a place where anyone interested in language or linguistics can ask a question and get the response of a panel of professional linguists. Be sure to browse their archived questions (with answers, of course).
posted on Jan 12, 2004 - View this thread

Dave's List of Words That Are Fun To Say
posted on Nov 25, 2003 - View this thread

It's OK to Talk Like a Pirate, Just Don't Pirate Words!
from Dan Gillmor and David Weinberger, found via The Boingers, who disabled comments.
posted on Sep 18, 2003 - View this thread

Luciferous Logolepsy: Dragging obscure words into the light of day.
::with thanks to Madamjujujive
posted on Sep 10, 2003 - View this thread

Compendium of lost words You may have been wondering what "triclavianism" means. You may have been disappointed when dictionary.com couldn't help. Look no further.
posted on Aug 16, 2003 - View this thread

The World has at least 6,800 active languages and countless more dialects ranging from Alacatlatzala to Zoque Tabasco. These are the Top 10 languages.
posted on Apr 2, 2003 - View this thread

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 on Oct 21, 2002 - View this thread

Not that this link is of any importance. I just wanted to recognize Schadenfreude as "Word of the Day" today at merriam-webster.com.
posted on Jun 26, 2001 - View this thread