Diction,
Vocabulary, and Usage
Dictionaries, Vocabulary, Spelling
Your Dictionary.Com. All kinds of dictionaries in many languages..
Diction References. Links to Dictionaries, Thesauri and Style manuals..
Diction. Hypergrammar. University of Ottawa.
Vocabulary. Many Links. BYU.
The Rhyme Zone: Lycos. Enter a word and get all the rhyming words.
Words and Wordplay. Thinks.Com.
The Collective Nouns. What do you call a roomfull of administrators?
ON FINALLY ACHIEVING PERFECT COPY, by Marylaine Block. On the perils of spell-checkers.
A Spelling Test. See if you can spell correctly a number of commonly misspelled words.
Luciferous Logolepsy: Dragging obscure words into the light of day. "A collection of over 9,000 obscure english words."
Commonly Confused Word Pairs
Glossary of Frequently Confused Words and Phrases.
Homonyms, Homophones, and Homographs. Alan Cooper's Homonyms.
Common Errors in English. Commonly connfused words. By Paul Brians. The Heteronym Home Page. Words spelled alike that, when pronounced differently, mean different things..
Idioms
Two Part (Phrasal) Verbs (Idioms). Purdue OWL.
English Idioms and Proverbs. English Language Cyber Center. BYU.
Annotated List: Idioms Website. U Texas.
Etymologies: Word and Phrase Origins
Etymology. Introduction to Etymology: A brief definition of terms.
Combining Forms, Affixes, and Roots from Greek and Latin.
Common Root Words and Word Origins.
InternetPublicLibrary Pathfinder: Word and Phrase Origins. This guide is designed for anyone who is looking for the origin of words and/or phrases, also called etymology (these terms will be used interchangeably in this pathfinder). Both print-based and Web-based sources are included."
Proverbs and Sayings
Commonly-Used Proverbs. "Over 230 common proverbs sorted alphabetically."
English Proverbs and Humor. UCLA.
American English Proverbs. Santa Monica College Reading Lab.
Cliches
The Book of Cliches: Phrases to say in times of trouble.
Cliche Finder: "Over 3,300 cliches indexed."
The Phrase Finder. Type in a word, such as water, and get ready-made phrases and cliches.
Jargon, Euphemisms and Doublespeak
Euphemism Quiz for You and Your Students. Business Communication Resources.
The American Newspeak Award Winners for 1996. Examples of Newspeak from the American Newspeak Website.
Jargon Watch. Wonderfully wretched examples. Long Island University.
Weasel Words
Weasel Words. Ronald Walters and T. H. Kern.
Jargon, Weasel Words, and Gobbledygook. California State University Northridge.
Weasel Words. Advertising. Washington State University.
The Language of Advertising: Weasel Words. Florida State University.
Language is Funny
Language Humor. Many Links.
English Signs and Notices Around the World. University of Wisconsin-EauClaire.
Sounds of the World's Animals. "Animals make much the same sounds around the world, but each language expresses them differently. English and French cows sound the same, but not in English and French! Explore the sounds of the world's languages through the sounds of the world's animals."