Clipmarks | JediKnut's 'english' clips

Online Education Database - This is a strange site, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it - but this link lists over 100 specific search and research tools, often relevant to specific subjects.

MathWorld - if you have the great misfortune of having to take math, then this site can be of great help. Everything mathematics from Geometry to Calculus is covered by this site in great detail.

GeoHive and Fedstats - These are both statistics sites, so if you need to know how many people. Fedstats allows public access to public agency statistics. Geohive is a bit cooler, primarily providing global statistics (gender populations, coal reserves, etc). I know, it’s so exciting I can’t stand it.

Theoi and Encyclopedia of Mythology - Both excellent resources on the subject of mythology and ancient religions. This is useful information all across the humanities.

Tags: research

No wonder english is so hard to learn

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 10:17:00 GMT

clipped by: rotofade

Clip Source: www.whosoever.org

No Wonder English Is So Hard To Learn

We polish the Polish furniture.

He could lead if he would get the lead out.

A farm can produce produce.

The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.

The soldier decided to desert in the desert.

The present is a good time to present the present.

At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.

The dove dove into the bushes.

I did not object to the object.

The insurance for the invalid was invalid.

The bandage was wound around the wound.

There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

They were too close to the door to close it.

The buck does funny things when the does are present.

They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.

To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.

I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.

I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

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Tags: language, funny, english, satire, pronunciation

So you thought you knew everything

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 17:33:51 GMT

clipped by: janeg

Clip Source: www.johnsimonds.com

“Stewardesses” is the longest word typed with only the left hand and “lollipop” with your right. (Bet you tried this out mentally, didn’t you?)

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”. (Are you doubting this?)

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. (You’re not doubting this, are you?)

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: “abstemious” and “facetious.”(Yes, admit it, you are going to say . a e i o u)

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.(All you typists are going to test this out)

A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

A snail can sleep for three years.(I know some people that could do this too.)

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

Babies are born without kneecaps They don’t appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon

If the population of Chinawalked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!

The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.(Good thing he did that)

The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Fallsfroze completely solid.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Now you know everthing you need to know.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

Tags: humour

12 Writing Tips From George Orwell

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 18:14:30 GMT

clipped by: missangelyss

Clip Source: www.writingclasses.com

George Orwell has earned the right to be called one of the finer writers in the English language through such novels as 1984 and Animal Farm, such essays as “Shooting an Elephant,” and his memoir Down and Out in Paris.

George expressed a strong dislike of totalitarian governments in his work, but he was also passionate defender of good writing. Thus, you may want to hear some of George’s writing tips.*

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

What am I trying to say?
What words will express it?
What image or idiom will make it clearer?
Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

Could I put it more shortly?
Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

* From “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell.

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Tags: writing

23 Obscure and Obsolete Words

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 04:41:58 GMT

clipped by: missangelyss

Clip Source: www.canongate.net

23 Obscure and Obsolete Words

The average adult recognises 30,000 to 50,000 words, but only uses 10,000 to 15,000. However, there are actually about 1 million words in the English language, some of which - although obscure, forgotten, or rarely used - are worth reviving.

BOANTHROPY - A type of insanity in which a man thinks he is an ox.
CHANTEPLEURE - To sing and weep at the same time.
DIBBLE - To drink like a duck, lifting up the head after each sip.
EOSOPHOBIA - Fear of dawn.
EUGERIA - Normal and happy old age.
EUNEIROPHRENIA - Peace of mind after a pleasant dream.
EYESERVICE - Work done only when the boss is watching.
FELLOWFEEL - To crawl into the skin of another person so as to share his feelings, to empathise with.
GROAK - To watch people silently while they are eating, hoping they will ask you to join them.
GYNOTIKOLOBOMASSOPHILE - One who likes to nibble on a woman's earlobes.
HEBEPHRENIC - A condition of adolescent silliness.
IATROGENIC - Illness or disease caused by doctors or by prescribed treatment.
LAPLING - Someone who enjoys resting in women's laps.
LIBBERWORT - Food or drink that makes one idle and stupid, food of no nutritional value, `junk food'.
MEUPAREUNIA - A sexual act gratifying to only one participant.
NEANIMORPHIC - Looking younger than one's years.
ONIOCHALASIA - Buying as a means of mental relaxation.
PARNEL - A priest's mistress.
PERISTEROPHOBIA - Fear of pigeons.
PILGARLIC - A bald head that looks like a peeled garlic.
PREANTEPENULTIMATE - Fourth from last.
RESISTENTIALISM - Seemingly spiteful behaviour manifested by inanimate objects.
SUPPEDANEUM - A foot support for crucifix victims.

Other lists in Words

Have a browse of the List of Lists down the left hand side of this page for more lists in different subjects...

Tags: english, grammar, wordsmith, words

Don't Write Like An Idiot

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:19:00 GMT

clipped by: bignosemousie
clipper's remarks: This is a reclip of an older clip that Invictus made. His original exceeded the current clip limit so I couldn't revive it.

Refresher everyone.

Clip Source: web.centre.edu

You may not notice it yourself, but if you don't know the difference between YOUR and YOU'RE, you come across as an idiot whenever you use them. They are not interchangeable, and neither are THERE, THEIR, and THEY'RE, nor any of the examples explained below. As more and more communication takes place online and in writing, through chat, email and messaging, certain common misspellings of words and contractions have become dangerously frequent, reinforcing their repeated misuse. This page doesn't aspire to make you a decent writer, or even a competent speller. It only seeks to keep you from making an ass of yourself.

YOUR ≠ YOU'RE

ITS ≠ IT'S

THERE ≠ THEIR ≠ THEY'RE

*NEW* ACCEPT ≠ EXCEPT *NEW*

NOUNS ≠ NOUN'S

WHO'S ≠ WHOSE

KNOW ≠ NO ≠ NOW

TOO ≠ TO ≠ TWO

OUR ≠ ARE

WHERE ≠ WE'RE ≠ WERE

AFFECT ≠ EFFECT

Tags: spelling, grammar, writing, common mistakes, english language, write.better.look.smarter

English Idioms

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:47:36 GMT

clipped by: mona
clipper's remarks: FAR FAR too many to clip. I only selected a few of my favourites from the "a" list.........ah, i could spend hours browsing this list!

Clip Source: www.usingenglish.com

An idiom is a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words, which can make idioms hard for ESL students and learners to understand. Here, we provide a dictionary of 2,437 English idiomatic expressions with definitions.

126 Idioms Beginning With 'A'

A bit much

A little bird told me

A rising tide lifts all boats

About as useful as a chocolate teapot

Age before beauty

Agony aunt

Albatross around your neck

All over the place

All the tea in China

As cool as a cucumber

At the drop of a hat

Tags: idioms, english, language

Speak English

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:47:15 GMT

clipped by: CrazyRedHead

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

A billion people speak English worldwide, making it the third-largest language, behind Chinese and Spanish. But how well do we understand its idiosyncrasies?

Tags: english, language, humor, humour

Thousands of hyphens perish as English marches on

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 11:59:33 GMT

clipped by: Deepti

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

About 16,000 words have succumbed to pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

Bumble-bee is now bumblebee, ice-cream is ice cream and pot-belly is pot belly.

And if you've got a problem, don't be such a crybaby (formerly cry-baby)

Researchers examined a corpus of more than 2 billion words, consisting of full sentences that appeared in newspapers, books, Web sites and blogs from 2000 onwards.

For the most part, the dictionary dropped hyphens from compound nouns, which were unified in a single word (e.g. pigeonhole) or split into two (e.g. test tube)

Formerly hyphenated words split in two:

fig leaf

hobby horse

ice cream

pin money

pot belly

test tube

water bed

Formerly hyphenated words unified in one:

bumblebee

chickpea

crybaby

leapfrog

logjam

lowlife

pigeonhole

touchline

waterborne

Tags: hyphens, language, dictionary, words, english

Amazing and Funny Really Cool Facts

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:10:43 GMT

clipped by: Lapis Lazuli
clipper's remarks: Some things everyone should know

Clip Source: www.world-english.org

50 Completely Useless Facts!

Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren’t added to it.

The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.

Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.

Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."

The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.

Dolphins sleep with one eye open!

Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain

The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!

Earth is the only planet not named after a god.

Tags: facts, trivia, fun, funny, useless, cool

Ancient NAMES: Surnames, things, articles

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:56:15 GMT

clipped by: righthand

Clip Source: www.s-gabriel.org

Personal Names in Specific Cultures

English, Old English, and Anglo-Norman Names

Scandinavian Names

German Names

Names from the Low Countries

Frankish and French Names

Occitan and Catalan Names

Spanish and Portuguese Names

Italian Names

Scottish Names

Irish and Manx Names

Welsh, Cornish, and Breton Names

Early Celtic

Gaulish

Pictish

Classical Roman

Classical and Byzantine Greek Names

Coptic and Nubian Names

Gothic

Slavic and Baltic Names

Hungarian Names

Romanian

Romany (Gypsy)

Jewish Names

Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Islamic Names

Central Asian

Mongol Names

Indian

Chinese

Japanese

General Information on Medieval Personal Naming

WWW Names Pages for Medievalists to Avoid

Choosing a Society Name: Hints for Newcomers

The Tale of Tangwystyl; or It's Your Name and You Can Change If You Want To

A Brief Introduction to Medieval Bynames

The Latinization of Names in the Middle Ages

Names of Things (including places, ships, buildings, clans, military units, and orders of chivalry

Tags: ancient

John Cleese's "Letter to America" - I think we're all English now.

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:55:18 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: The finest English humour. 19 other points of transition to British rule listed at source site.

Clip Source: starrgazr.wordpress.com

In view of your failure to elect a competent President and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy), as from Monday next.

Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

8. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists.

Thank you for your co-operation.

John Cleese

The language you speak affects your personality

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:07:21 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: A study of bilingual women suggests that when you switch from speaking one language to another, your personality and your perceptions change as well. I've experienced this myself switching between German and English.

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Switching languages can also switch personality: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - People who are bicultural and speak two languages may unconsciously change their personality when they switch languages, according to a U.S. study.

Researchers David Luna from Baruch College and Torsten Ringberg and Laura A. Peracchio from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee studied groups of Hispanic women, all of whom were bilingual, but with varying degrees of cultural identification.

"Language can be a cue that activates different culture-specific frames," the researchers said in a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

The researchers said the women classified themselves as more assertive when they spoke Spanish than when they spoke English.

"In the Spanish-language sessions, informants perceived females as more self-sufficient and extroverted," they said.

Tags: language, psychology, news, science, gender, via:twitter

Top 10 Most Spoken Languages In The World

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:22:07 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: listverse.com

Language is perhaps the most important function of the human body - it allows us to get sustenance as a child, it allows us to get virtually anything we want as an adult, and it allows us many hours of entertainment through literature, radio, music, and films. This list (in order of least to most spoken) summarizes the most important languages in use today.

French

Malay-Indonesian

Portuguese

Bengali

Arabic

Russian

Spanish

Hindustani

English

Mandarin

Tags: language, world