Links

The following is a collection of links that may be of interest to sesquioticians, possibly for no good reason at all.

Fun with dictionaries:

Dictionary.com, the best Web dictionary, especially if you like good etymologies all the way back to proto-Indo-European

yourDictionary.com (A Web of On-Line Dictionaries), wheee! A logophile's playground paradise!

M-W.com, the legacy of Messrs. Merriam and Webster

The Alternative Dictionary, your home for all the naughtiest expressions in any language you could ever want to speak

The Exploding Dictionary, practically the apotheosis of sesquiotics: every word in any definition is linked to its own definitions

AltaVista Translations, for quick though unidiomatic renderings

Wilton's Etymology Page, if you've ever wondered where an expression came from

Origin of Phrases, not verbal Darwinism but a good place to turn if Wilton won't help

ClicheSite.com, where they have clichés coming out the ears and explanations 'til the cows come home

World Wide Words, home of an email newsletter that you absolutely must subscribe to - go there and do it now

TheFreeDictionary.com, with a whack of article and definitions from several sources

podictionary.com, because you want to be able to hear about words on your iPod (or even if you don't have an iPod)

Editors' references:

Aileena, an index of newspapers, radio and television all over the planet

Bartleby.com, a whack o' reference materials, notably Bartlett's and Strunk & White

The Canadian Encyclopedia – O Canada, our home and native encyclopedia, true patriot info in all thy... never mind, it's pretty good

CIA World Factbook – who else would you expect to have all the basic stats on every country in the world?

City-Town Reference, because sometimes you really need to know some bit of minutia about a town you just heard about 34 seconds ago

CNN.com Europe, for American news packaged for Europeans who actually care and want it in English

Digital Librarian, since the Web is now the world's biggest reference library

Editors' Association of Canada web resources for editors - more links, in other words

Encyclopaedia Britannica, because you can never know everything, but there's nothing wrong with trying

How Stuff Works, especially if you started taking things apart at age two and haven't stopped

HTML help - don't buy a book, look it up here

Librarians' Index to the Internet, because if librarians don't know where to find it, the apocalypse is on its way

MapQuest, so you can find out just where that curious address you read in a book or on someone else's envelope actually is

MedBroadcast, because you might get sick (or think you're sick) someday

The New York Times, which is probably the best newspaper in the world, and you can get free updates from it every morning and free access to the whole thing on the Web

OANDA's 164 currency converter, since of course you must love to travel abroad

Refdesk.com, since you can always stand a few more reference sources if you care about being right

Sources of International Statistics on the Internet, since sometimes you get into these weird debates that hinge on foreign flax production or something stupid like that

The Telegraph, news from England – even if it is owned by Tubby Black, who prefers empty "nobility" to Canadian citizenship, it still has one of the funniest and most cynical cartoons on the planet, Alex

ThinkDM 411 Phone Search, to find that long-lost friend you want to invite to your wedding

Tony Aspler, the Wine Guy, because wine is a good thing

Virtual Reference Library, since not everybody lives near the Toronto Reference Library with its magnificent atrium and, oh yes, books

W3Schools, since you have no good reason not to know about HTML, CSS and all those wonderful things

Wired Style, since someone's got to decide about proper internet usage

Yale Style Manual, since Web style is different from print style

Slices of reality you don't normally see:

The Forme of Cury, a medieval English cookbook, two ways for food to be bad (medieval and English!) but it's such fun to look at

De Concertzender, the best and most varied classical radio station I've ever found, streaming live on the Internet, en - wat is de best - zij spreken nederlands

Word nerds:

Fun-with-words, which pretty much says it

Reg Harbeck, who seriously intends to be poet laureate of Canada some day, and certainly may do so if mainframe sysadmins get to vote on it

Word puzzle solutions, including longest palindromes, words that end in -gry, and all sorts of other remarkable stunts

Babelizer, which puts a given piece of text through Babelfish ten times: five to other languages from English, and five back to English. "Wop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom" becomes "Bop of the joint of the blows of bop to this loo slowly an effect to the joint of the plan of the tree of the activator of the exit of bam he." One result partway through the process (it shows all ten results) was "It slowly hits the this loo bop of the joint of bop an effect of To the flat joint of the starter shaft of bam." Wheee!

Just because:

The Harbeck family home page, because they're my family an' all

Coffee with Warren, 'cause he's my da, and his column is deservedly popular

Aina Arro, because she's beautiful, talented, and married to me

Know of any links that belong here? Email James Harbeck, seamus@harbeck.ca.