Food for Thought - March 2000
Webgrammar Stew
Recommendations
Webgrammar Stew
I've started a new monthly drawing. Each month, I give away a free Webster's hard-bound dictionary. You can find a link at the bottom of every page on Webgrammar's site - I've
also become a Barnes and Noble affiliate, and any proceeds received from the links on Webgrammar's site will go toward offering more free dictionaries or other reference books.
WE NEED YOUR IDEAS TO HELP A READER
READER DILEMMA: "If today is the 27th of February, what is the date of the next Tuesday: February 29th or March 7th? I was taught that next Tuesday would be February 29th...but here in South Carolina where I now live, they say that February 29th is this Tuesday and that March 7th would be next Tuesday. What is correct?"
READERS: CAN YOU HELP? It seems to me that this is a cultural rather than a style issue, but I'm not sure. I'll print the best responses in my next newsletter.
ERIC CLEARINGHOUSE: fantastic site for assessment, evaluation, and
research information. All aspects of tests and other measurement
devices. The design and methodology of research, measurement, and
evaluation. The evaluation of programs and projects. The application
of tests, measurement, and evaluation devices/instrumentation in
education projects and programs.
FREE SKILLS: Online training in Microsoft Product, Unix, Lotus, Novell, Macintosh, Corel, Desktop Databases, DTP, Programming, Lotus, Graphics, Contact Management, Softskills (time management, stress counselling, & personal development). The only requirement is that you run Adobe Reader, and they provide a link to download this free program.
SCHEDULE EARTH: A comprehensive source of personal and professional development schedules for courses, seminars and continuing education. Offers searchable database for locating courses/seminars by date, keywords and cities.
VOCABULA REVIEW - ARTICLE BY ROBERT P. O'SHEA, Department
of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Home page http://psy.otago.ac.nz:800/r_oshea/o'shea.html
O'Shea's article is entitled The Linguistic Conservationist. "I think of myself as a linguistic conservationist," he says. "Words and expressions are evolving and changing in much the same way as biological species. I want to protect useful and cute words and expressions from being overrun by vigorous,
fast-breeding synonyms."
DID YOU KNOW THAT Merriam-Webster's WWW Dictionary
puts confusing words in three categories: homonyms, homophones, and homographs?
Main Entry: hom·onym
Etymology: Latin homonymum, from Greek homOnymon, from neuter
of homOnymos
Date: 1697
1 a : HOMOPHONE b : HOMOGRAPH c : one of two or more words
spelled and pronounced alike but different in meaning (as the
noun quail and the verb quail)
Main Entry: ho·mo·phone
Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary
Date: 1843
1 : one of two or more words pronounced alike but different
in meaning or derivation or spelling (as the words to, too,
and two)
Main Entry: ho·mo·graph
Function: noun - Date: 1873: one of two or more words spelled
alike but different in meaning or derivation or pronunciation
(as the bow of a ship, a bow and arrow)
After discovering these somewhat confusing distinctions, I
understand why my hero, Professor Charles Darling calls them "notorious confusables." Alan Cooper also has an awesome compilation of the three categories.
Recommendations
A SELECTED CATALOGUE OF POSTAL, TELEPHONE, AND PHILATELIC WEB RESOURCES
ASHRAE, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers is an international organization of 50,000 persons with chapters throughout the world. The Society is organized for the sole purpose of advancing the arts and
sciences of heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration for the public's benefit through research, standards writing, continuing education and publications.
BRAIN.COM
DISTANCE AND EDUCATIONAL TRAINING COUNCIL ONLINE: The Distance Education and Training Council (formerly the National Home Study Council) is a non profit educational association located in Washington, D.C. that serves as a clearinghouse of information about the distance study/correspondence field and sponsors a nationally recognized accrediting agency called the Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council.
DISTANCE LEARNING GRADUATE PROGRAMS
ESSENTIALS OF MUSIC: SONY and W. W. Norton team up to give the basic information about classical music. Both for the casual listener and the serious music student. Created in cooperation with W.W. Norton & Company, it's built around Essential Classics, the series specially designed to introduce people to the best music of every period. Throughout the site you'll find almost 200 excerpts from Essential Classics.
THE INTERNATIONAL DISTANCE LEARNING COURSE FINDER is the world's largest one-stop and truly independent distance education directory online, with information on over 50,000 distance learning courses offered by universities, colleges and companies from 65 countries.
INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONIC PHALERISTIC ENCYCLOPEDIA The emerging discipline of phaleristics-the scientific study of orders, decorations, and medals-has long suffered from a lack of reference materials. It is the intent of thE International Electronic Phaleristic Encyclopedia (IEPE) to begin to link country-
specific sites to accumulate and focus what knowledge it has. The goal is to "grow" a virtual encyclopedia on orders, decorations, and medals, worldwide and across time.
LANGUAGE-LEARNING: has information for people interested in learning or teaching foreign languages
REGIMENTS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND COMMONWEALTH
SCHOLARLY ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING BIBLIOGRAPHY Presents OVER 1,100 selected articles, books, electronic documents, and other sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet and other networks. Most sources have been published between 1990 and the present; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1990 are also included. Where possible,
links are provided to sources available via the Internet.
SCHOOL WEB PAGE DEVELOPMENT GUIDES INCLUDING FREE TEMPLATES
AND GRAPHICS: Underwritten by Sun Microsystems. Main Index
SEARCH POWER: The World's Largest Search Engine Directory with over 2,000 Internet Search Engines...and growing.
TEXT & ACADEMIC AUTHORS: NOTABLE AUTHORS
USELESS INFORMATION
THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF WOMBATS: UNOFFICIAL STUMPERS-L PAGE Stumpers-L is an email group or conference where Reference Librarians post questions which have them stumped. With a worldwide community of over 1,000 librarians and other experts sharing their knowledge and resources, Stumpers-L is the world's largest and most versatile reference desk, and the answers often make for interesting reading.
WORD POLICE: Atlantic Monthly The Word Police are looking for a few good people. As a certified Word Police officer, you will be entitled to issue Grammar Citations when you see or hear crimes against the
language. To be inducted into the force, you must pass a Word Police Academy exam.
WORD FLEX - to subscribe to WordFlex:
Either go to the Web site at http://www.bignetwork.com/dp/wf - and type your e-mail address in the window, or send an e-mail
to mailto:lex@bignetwork.com
Questions for Webgrammar? Click Here!
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