Thursday, March 17, 2011

sunset and vocabulary

Current work: new Riva
Listening to: Patrick Hawes, the Highgrove Suite
Reading: next on TBR

One thing about the foggy weather we’ve been having lately is the effect on the sunsets. This is from the weekend, but it’s stunning anyway. (And a picture is worth a thousand words, which is what I need to write this morning. And then a few more. Deadline looming…)


I did, however, find a REALLY interesting site yesterday which I think most wordsmiths would love.

Basically, my daughter wanted to know what the longest word in the English language was, for homework purposes (I think it involved showing off, actually, but then again I feel I should encourage an interest in vocabulary from my baby writer-in-training.) The one I knew wasn’t in my Concise Oxford. (Antidisestablishmentarianism. OK, so her mother is a show-off as well.) I looked up the Oxford Dictionary website to see what it suggested, and discovered all kinds of wonderful things, including vocabulary questions here (fascinating stuff: such as the frequency of the letters of the alphabet in English) and word origins here. Oh, and a really fabulous blog here, which is absolutely going on my procrastination list. (Except not this morning. I am working, I am, I am, I am...)

4 comments:

Ros said...

I think it used to be floccinaucinihipilification but there may be a longer one now.

Me said...

Ooh that is a beautiful shot.

Miss Bougie said...

Regardez l'eau - as origin of the word 'loo? So hilarious...
And "grockle", never heard of that word before. Thanks for allowing me to broaden my horizon;

I love your findings and links to such pages on the internet.
Well done and thanks for sharing, Kate.

Kate Hardy said...

Ros - that was one of the ones on the OED website. There are longer ones, but they tend to be medical (and she had to use the word in a piece of descriptive writing - hers was lovely, very showy-off!).

Gems - thank you :o)

Brigitte - glad you're enjoying the links!