For Word Lovers

Annie fairly bounced out of the library bookstore wearing a big grin. "The Devil's Dictionary! For a dollar! I've been looking for this."

I had no idea what she was talking about. Annie is our family literature fiend, with hundreds of books packed into her little bedroom. She explained that The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, is a sarcastic, witty collection of word definitions, like this:

battle: n. A method of untying with the teeth of a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

egotist: n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

It's a delicious, irreverent read and because it's no longer covered by copyright law, the entire thing is available online at: The Devil's Dictionary.

Enjoy.

Visual Thesaurus

I use an online rhyming dictionary and thesaurus much more often than I care to admit, and I just discovered this "Visual Thesaurus"

I haven't purchased it - but they allow you a couple trial searches for free. I love it, because it's EXACTLY how I think and how I work with ideas on paper and a terrific use of technology.

For word lovers....or fellow vocabularians

21,730 pages.

That's a mighty big reading project. But Ammon Shea managed to read all 20 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary - and lived to tell the tale.

An interview an excerpt from his book are available in this article on NPR.