Friday, 23 March 2012

Word Spy - A Guide to New Words


Wordspy is a great little find. It documents the meaning and usage of new words coming into the English Language. From browsing the front page, I learned that a 'piem' is a poem where the length of each word corresponds to the numbers in pi, thereby offering a mnemonic for recalling pi itself; one for me to take away and use immediately - great!

Integration:

  • Entries can be searched in a number of ways including by category so learners studying language itself may well find this useful for a particular topic e.g. the language of insults or economics; as citations of where the words first appeared are included, it's a great starting point for a research project
  • The catalogue could be used to enrich writing; I particularly like the euphemism section and I can see how directing learners to it could support them in their attempts at injecting humour into their texts
  • In a world where new words are being coined on a daily basis, this is a great repository for simply keeping up with the lingo in a particular field, whether it be Science, Computers, Sociology or others


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