88 FUN WITH WORDS WEBSITES

InvestorWords
 6,000 investing terms and 20,000 links between related words.
http://www.investorwords.com/
The Jargon File
A collection of slang terms used by various subcultures of computer hackers.
http://www.jargon.8hz.com/jargon_toc.html
Jennifer's Language Page
Wondering how to say "hello" in Danish or "thank you" in Kurdish? Jennifer has a great collection of how to say common words and phrases in different languages with an extensive list of links to similar pages.
http://www.elite.net/~runner/jennifers/
John's Word Search Puzzles
John's busy making four new puzzles a month for you to print out and solve. Me, I'm working on the one about chocolate ('natch!).
http://www.thepotters.com/puzzles.html
Jumble and Crossword Solver
You enter scrambled letters and it returns the unscrambled word. It also lets you enter words with letters missing and it tells you all the words that fit the pattern.
http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/jumble.html
Kenny Translator
Translate text you type into the box into South Park's Kennyspeak.
http://www.namesuppressed.com/kenny/
Kiwi Words & Phrases
Words and expressions commonly used in New Zealand with their equivalent definition.
http://www.chemistry.co.nz/kiwi.htm
The Klingon Language Institute
You can also learn about the KLI's ambitious projects, such as translating the Bible and the works of Shakespeare into Klingon. The KLI publishes a peer reviewed quarterly journal, HolQeD, and the world's first Klingon literary magazine, <jatmey> or "Scattered Tongues."
http://www.kli.org/
LaLa Dictionary
CaliforniaSpeak demystified.
http://www.lalatimes.com/Miscellany/diction.html
Ladle Rat Rotten Hut
Ladle Rat Rotten Hut is a version of the story "Little Red Riding Hood" written in 1940 by H.L Chace, a French professor, to show his students how integral intonation is to the meaning of language. For the full effect, read this aloud.
http://web.syr.edu/~rsholmes/reads/reading/ladle_rat_rotten_hut.html
Language Games.org
Solve word search puzzles, crossword puzzles and play hangman in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian. http://www.languagegames.org/la/
Letterbox Word Game
A simple but addictive online word game. You place letters one at a time into the left-hand grid to make as many words as you can. You play alongside the computer and see if you can beat the computer's score.
http://www.netspace.net.au/~bostwalk/letterbox.html
Linguistic Phenomena/Devices
This is a list of some of the lesser-known linguistic phenomena and devices used in English writing. You actually know what most of these are, you just didn't know what they were called.
http://www.csi.uottawa.ca/~kbarker/ling-devices.html
Little Explorers
A multi-lingual (English; English to Spanish; English to French) picture dictionary with wonderful graphic and links.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Dictionary.html
Longest Place Name in the World
You'll need a giant envelope to send them mail!
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/name.html
Lost In Translation
This site answers the question "What happens when an English phrase is translated (by computer) back and forth between 5 different languages?" Some pretty strange stuff!
http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/
Mag's Word Finder
Ever wondered how many words you could make out of the letters in your name? or "Merry Christmas?" or ... ? This is the place to find out. Choose a dictionary, type in a word or phrase, and fire away!
http://magswordfinder.com/
Majstro
A multilingual translation dictionary with a wide range of languages.
http://www.majstro.com/
Marriage Names
"If Yoko Ono married Sonny Bono, she'd be Yoko Ono Bono" and other such "related" nonsense!
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/3456/h_marriage.html
Medspeak -- The Dictionary of ER
Find out what it means when Dr. Benton says "Get me a thoracotomy tray, stat!" or when Dr. Green orders a "CBC, Chem-7, lytes"
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/5196/index.html
Names for Pets
Wondering what to name your new pet? Heres an A to Z listing of names.
http://gladpet.com/names/
Native Tongue -- Discover the Hawaiian Language
Learn the lingo of the original surfers! Audio clips help you talk like a native.
http://www.aloha-hawaii.com/hawaii_magazine/hawaiian/index.shtml
Nautical Expressions in the Vernacular
Collection of nautical expressions found in the works of author Patrick O'Brian, some with explanations showing the connection between a familiar phrase in everyday language to its marine heritage.
http://www.io.com/gibbonsb/words.words.words.html
Never Say Neverisms
William Safire's illustrative hints of what not do when writing. Example: "Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read."
http://www.mapping.com/never2.html
New Words in English
Neologisms and novel uses of words in English collected by members of the class Linguistics/English 215, Words in English: Structure, History and Use, taught by Suzanne Kemmer at Rice University.
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~ling215/NewWords/index.html
ODLIS: Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science
Learn to talk like a librarian.
http://www.wcsu.edu/library/odlis.html
OED Online: Word of the Day
The Oxford English Dictionary presents a word a day complete with pronunciation, spellings, etymology, quotations and date chart.
http://oed.com/cgi/display/wotd
Official Ten Codes
Everybody knows 10-4 means OK, but here's a site that will teach you the others. Hope you don't 10-22 this site.
http://spiffy.ci.uiuc.edu/~kline/Stuff/ten-codes.html
Ohwejagehka: Ha`degaenage: Iroquois Language + Songs
Words and songs of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. Includes sound.
http://www.ohwejagehka.com/index.html
Oly-hay Ible-bay
The Bible in Pig Latin. Genesis, Job and John currently available.
http://www.MuseumOfConceptualArt.com/ible-bay.html
On-line Chinese Tools
Tools to assist learning and using the Chinese language include Character Flashcards, a Chinese/English dictionary, a Chinese Namer, and a Western/Chinese Calendar Converter.
http://www.mandarintools.com/
Once Upon a Palindrome
A story and a word game in one. You come up with a palindrome that logically finishes each section.
http://members.cox.net/jjschnebel/palin.html
Online Hieroglyphics Translator
Enter text and have it translated into hieroglyphics.
http://www.quizland.com/hiero.htm
The Periodic Table of Poetry
Chemistry and poetry together as never before. Click on your favorite element for a poem.
http://www.superdeluxe.com/elemental/
Phobia List
It's enough to give you hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (fear of long words). Now featuring a reverse phobia list where you can look things up the thing feared.
http://phobialist.com/
PhoneSpell
Enter a 6 to 10 digit phone number and find out what words and phrases your phone number spells.
http://www.phoneSpell.org/phoneSpell.html
Phonetic Alphabets (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta...)
There is a widely known alphabet Alpha Bravo ... Yankee Zulu. Such alphabets are variously known as phonetic/radio/spelling/telephone alphabets, and the term analogy alphabet is also used. This is a collection such alphabets from a variety of languages.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/radio/phonetic-alph/full/
Puns Galore
This attractive, easy-to-navigate site includes puns of the day, puns you can browse by category (such as shaggy dog, one-liners, groaners, and spoonerisms) or search for in a number of ways.
http://www.punsgalore.com/index.html
Puzzlemaker
A site that lets you create customized puzzles. Includes word search, criss-cross, cryptograms, fallen phrases and much more.
http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com/
Quis vocaris? Your Name in Latin
To find your name in Latin, enter your first name, last name, and the country (US, Canada, Mexico), state or major city where you live.
http://www.latin.org/english/name-lookup.html
Rap Dictionary
This one is for serious rappers. Parental advisory included.
http://www.rapdict.org/dictionary_0.html
Rhetorical Figures
From alliteration to zeugma, and everything in between, all the figures of speech are here.
http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/rhetoric.html
RhymeZone: The Rhyming Dictionary and Thesaurus
Enter a word in the space provided and hit "Submit." The computer will provide a list of rhyming words, each of which is linked to its definition and thesaurus entry.
http://www.rhymezone.com/
Richard Lederer's Verbivore Page
The web site woven for wordaholics, logolepts, and verbivores where we are reminded that "ours is the only language in which you drive in a parkway and park in a driveway and night falls but never breaks and day breaks but never falls."
http://www.pobox.com/~verbivore
Rosie's Ringers
Rosie presents lots of those picture word puzzle I love. She even includes a section to practice on if this type of puzzle is new to you. Great graphics, too!
http://www.rozies.com/Zzzz/Ringers/R-index.html
Russian Tongue Twisters
Yep, the title says it all. Thanks to DJW for this one. (Number 11 is our favorite!)
http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/ru.htm#O76
Sarangworld Word Morphing
Word morphing is changing one word into another by changing one letter at a time with each change resulting in a valid word. You enter a target and a source word, click the Morph Words button and see if morphing is possible.
http://www.sarangworld.com/WORDMORPH/
Scott Pakin's Automatic Complaint Letter Generator
You supply basic information regarding the person you wish to complain about and the number of paragraphs the complaint is to contain. Then push the complain button. Amazingly satisfying!
http://www.pakin.org/complaint/
A Seattle Lexicon
Lingo from the Far Corner. An interpretive guide for non-Northwesterners who want to get the inside line on the local lingo.
http://www.callihan.com/seattle/lexicon.htm
SignWriting
Learn how to read, write and type signed languages.
http://www.signwriting.org/read.html
Silva Rhetorica: The Forest of Rhetoric
Using the metaphor of a forest as a guide to navigation, this site an online reference and primer to the terms of classical and renaissance rhetoric, with over 800 terms defined with examples and references.
http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm
Slanguage.com: The Hick-to-Hip Translation Guide
Choose a city and learn to talk like the locals.
http://www.slanguage.com/
Sounds of the World's Animals
"Animals make much the same sounds around the world, but each language expresses them differently. English and French cows sound the same, but not in English and French! Explore the sounds of the world's languages through the sounds of the world's animals."
http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/animals/animals.html
Southern Word Homepage
A dictionary of how to speak Southern.
http://www.netsquirrel.com/crispen/word.html
Speak Jamaican
This Jamaican glossary will have you talking like a native in no time. Includes stories, recipes and photos.
http://www.jamaicans.com/speakja/glossary.htm
Spelling Test
An interactive spelling test which features fifty commonly misspelled words. Take the test and see how you score. At the bottom of the page are tips for how to improve your spelling.
http://www.sentex.net/~mmcadams/spelling.html
Sprechen Sie Search Engines?
Parlez vous motors de recheche? Learn how to say "search engines" at those important international conferences with this quick guide.
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/facts/sprechen.html
STANDS4.com
Decode acronyms and abbreviations used in any of a huge variety of categories.
http://www.stands4.com/
Steven Wright Quotes
A plethora of wonderful Steven Wright quotes. My favorite: "I went to a restaurant that serves `breakfast at any time'. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance."
http://cyclone.weather.net/zarg/ZarPages/stevenWright.html
Taglines Galore!
Featuring over 439,000 taglines. Not a blurb in the bunch.
http://www.taglinesgalore.com/tags/alphalist.html
Tom Swifties
Excruciating adverbial puns some collected, some created, by Michael Curl as part of his "thinks.com" site.
http://thinks.com/words/tomswift.htm
Tongue Twister Database
This page was originally created to give a good group of tongue twisters to people in speech therapy, to people who want to work on getting rid of an accent, or to people who just plain like tongue twisters. Enjoy!
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8136/tonguetwisters.html
Twists, Slugs and Roscoes: A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang
With the help of this glossary you too can talk like Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and Mike Hammer.
http://www.miskatonic.org/slang.html
Valley URL
Nostalgic for the 80's? Here's a site that will translate the Web site of your choice into, like, valleyspeak. Oh, my gawd!
http://www.80s.com/Entertainment/ValleyURL/
Vanity License Plates
A site honoring how creative people can be when they're limited to expressing themselves to 6 or 8 characters. Links here include help if you need to brush up on license plate basics and a retelling of the story of Oedipus the King told entirely with vanity plates, called Oedipus the King (Of the Road).
http://www-chaos.umd.edu/misc/origplates.html
VoyCabulary
VoyCabulary transforms any webpage into links to dictionary or thesaurus lookups. Enter the URL to your favorite website or type in a sentence. Once you're at the page, click on any word to look it up in the dictionary of your choice.
http://www.voycabulary.com/
Wacky World of Words
If you love word games, you'll love this page. Try your hand at such games as "Compound Clues," "Numbletters," "Alpha-Spells," and "Rhyming Buddies." Great fun!
http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/teachwell/
The Wicked Good Guide to Boston English
There's more to "Boston English" than pahking cahs in Hahvuhd Yahd, the author of this site explains. They have their own way of pronouncing other words, their own vocabulary, even a unique grammatical construct. This is the just the guide you need to help understand the locals.
http://www.boston-online.com/glossary.html
A Word A Day
This is the web-page for the mailing list A.Word.A.Day (AWAD), which mails out a vocabulary word and its definition (with occasional commentary) to the subscribers every day.
http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/index.html
The Word Detective
This web page features highlights from "Words, Wit and Wisdom," a humorous syndicated newspaper column which has been answering readers' questions about words and language since 1953.
http://www.word-detective.com/
Word Finder
When you know some or all of the letters that have to be in a word, but you don't know the exact order of those letters in the word, Word Finder can help. It's great to help solve anagrams and crossword puzzles and to cheat at Scrabble.
http://www.vainokodas.com/wordplay/FindWord.html
Word Frequency Indexer
Create a frequency index, or 'word list', of any text. Just paste or type in your text and select the sort order you'd like.
http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/webtools/web_freqs.html
Word Jumble
Helps you unscramble words with up to 25 characters. [Click on the link and choose "Word Jumble" from the menu.]
http://www.wordplays.com/
Word Morph
You enter a word and the computer will come up with a list of words differing from the original word by one letter. [New URL -- Click on the link and choose "Word Morph" from the menu.]
http://www.wordplays.com/
The Word Wizard
This site takes you on a round trip across the language, answering your questions, offering a selection of new words, snappy quotes and elegant insults, not to mention amazing competitions, Public Scribe Service, Fancy Word Parties and the Lexicographer's Club.
http://wordwizard.com/
Wordies On the Web
You translate an arrangements of letters, numbers and/or symbols into a familiar phrase, saying or cliché. Hard to explain, but lots of fun to do. I love these things!
http://www.wordies.ca/
Wordles: Home of Word Fun, Word Games, Word Puzzles and Word Play!
"If you're one of those folks who can't resist turning words inside out, trying them backwards, or transposing them in your mind, then you'll enjoy Wordles." Cryptograms, word search, word in a word, links, and more.
http://www.wordles.com/
Wordly Wise WordGames
An unusual and challenging collection of great word games.
http://www.hoadworks.com/gamemenu.htm
Wordplays
Play against the clock to test your word knowledge with the interactive active games Boggle and Crossword Challenge. The site also features an interactive mostly English dictionary and seven interactive tools to help you solve word puzzles.
http://www.wordplays.com/
Words & Stuff
Jed Hartman's weekly column on words and wordplay.
http://kith.org/logos/words/words.html
Words Commonly Confused
This site has groups of words commonly confused and some info to help figure out when to use which one.
http://homepage.smc.edu/reading_lab/words_commonly_confused.htm
Words Ending with -GRY
For me, the definitive page on the riddle that never seems to die, "There are three words in the English language that end with "gry." One is hungry and the other is angry. What is the third word?"
http://www.tempe.gov/library/netsites/gry.htm
Words in a Word
Helps you solve those "How many words can you find in a word?" puzzles. You put in your starting word, indicate the minimum number of letters a word can have, and the computer will do the rest. [Click on the link and choose "Words in a Word" from the menu.]
http://www.wordplays.com/
World Wide Words
World Wide Words takes a regular sideways glance at the English language, what makes it special and how it has got the way it is. This site features "Articles on Aspects of English," "Turns of Phrase," "The Word Hoard," and "Usage Notes."
http://www.worldwidewords.org/
Worthless Word For The Day (wwftd)
When I visited this site, the worthless word for the day was scumble
1) a: to make (as color or a painting) less brilliant by covering with a thin coat of opaque or semiopaque color
b: to apply (a color) in this manner
2) to soften the lines or colors of (a drawing) by rubbing lightly
http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
Ye Olde English Sayings
English sayings and customs that we have grown up with and taken for granted were explained during the web page author's tour of the Anne Hathaway house in Victoria, British Columbia.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/sayings.htm
Yiddishkeit
A gallery of Yiddish expressions transliterated and arranged A-Z. Gai gezunterhait!
http://www.pass.to/glossary/Default.htm
Your Dictionary.com
Here you'll find on-line dictionaries for over 280 languages, glossaries for over 50 areas, grammar resources and loads more.
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction.html