Word Fun for Web-footed Verbivores

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othing is more entertaining than human languages. All humans speak a language regardless or their intelligence or IQ. We speak even if we can't speak! If we can't speak or hear, we speak with our fingers and if we can't see, we read our fingers. Fingers work just as well as tongues and lips. The magic is in how much we tell of ourselves when speaking, our minds, our histories, our societies. We generally speak unconsciously; that is, we focus on what we are saying and not how we are saying it. So when we begin examining how we speak (which is what linguistics does), very interesting insights emerge.

On this page we will try to keep you in touch with the websites that explore all the fascinating facets of language. We are starting out small but will grow over time. Keep an eye on us.

YOUR NAME IN OTHER LANGUAGES

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FUN WITH WORDS

• NEW STUFF, EXPANDED FORMAT! The Funny Things Kids Say
  Children are learning machines. So, if we learn from our mistakes, they should make a pile of speech errors, some of which are bound to be funny. We aim to collect them all.
• alphaDictionary's Laughing Stock: Puns, limericks, spoonerisms, palindromes, and every other type of wordplay: a one-stop laughing center.
• Super appropriate Company Names
  Names of businesses that are particularly appropriate for the business they are conducting, such as The Reid and Wright Learning Centre, Bush and Hedges Landscaping, to mention only two.
• The Morty Skusting Writing Avoidance Center A classless room of automatic writing machines that generate memos, essays, haiku . . . even tombstones. No writing skills required. Why wake up your brain just to write a masterpiece?
• BuzzWhack: If you can use more than three buzzwords in a single sentence while keeping a straight face, this site is not for you. Buzzwords radically demystified.
• Word Popularity: Which English words and names are used most often?
  • Most Popular Names over the Centuries: See how popular your name and the names of your friends are today and in the past.
  • 85,000 Words in order of their Frequency of Occurrence. Which words are most often used in English?
• Palindromes: Words and phrases that are spelled the same way forwards and backwards. (So, why isn't palindrome spelled the same way forwards and backwards?)
  • Neil & Fred's Gigantic List of Palindromes
  • Palindrome Bob's
  • Palindrome.com
  • Noch Palendrome auf Deutsch
• Word Oddities
  • A Barrel Full of Word Fun
  • Have a ball with our International Tongue Twisters
  • Words That Contradict Themselves We call them contronyms.
  • A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia Scads of verbal oddities here.
  • Collective Nouns A list of colorful expressions of groupings.

ETYMOLOGY (Word Origins)

• Where do Words Come From?
  Dr. Goodword's explanation of the ways new words emerge in language.
• The Online Etymological Dictionary
  An excellent dictionary with etymologies going back to Latin, Greek, and Old Germanic.
• House of Logorrhea (11,387 arcane words)
  Here is the word list you have all been waiting for: words that have become obsolete for good reason. Still, they each have a small story about our history to tell.
• Fun Words
  Martha Barnette is a logophiliac with a hatful of words with surprising histories. If you love our Good Words, you will like this website, too.
• Etymology of Names
  Here is what your name started out meaning.

SAY IT IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE

• Jennifer's Language Pages
  Greetings and other usefull words and phrases in many different languages!
• 'I Love You' in 100 Languages (it takes a few clicks)
• The Numbers 1-10 in over 4500 Languages . En français
• 'Thank you' in Many Languages
  If you couldn't find 'thank you' in the language you need on Jennifer's page, try here.

For more Word Fun, check out our Word Games page created just for you!