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Word Quizzes ~ Dictionary of American Regional English

 

From Adam’s housecat to zydeco: After five decades, Dictionary of American Regional English completed.

 

"What is a Maine-born doctor to do when a patient in Pennsylvania complains, “I’ve been riftin’ and I’ve got jags in my leaders?”

Consult the Dictionary of American Regional English to learn that the patient has been belching and experiencing sharp pains in his neck."

 

"In case you aren't convinced that there are still a great many differences in American English usage, here are some quizzes to test your knowledge of our language. You have probably not heard of many of the terms or meanings. These are a stretch for most people."

Drag the definitions on the right onto their matching terms on the left. Then click Score me below to see how you did.

 

Words Into Images

"Ji Lee's book Word as Image started 20 years ago as an assignment in his typography class at art school.

"When we were children, letters were like fun toys," he says. "We played with them through our building blocks. We colored them in books. We danced and sang along with TV puppets while learning C was for 'cookie.' Soon, letters turned into words. Words turned into sentences. Sentences turned into thoughts. And along the way, we stopped playing with them and stopped marveling at A through Z."

Word Bubbles

Word Bubbles

Brain Games provided by Lumosity.

Word Bubbles will challenge your verbal agility and put your vocabulary and memory to the test.

All the Words in the World : Pronounced .

1,085,585 words
1,157,314 pronunciations
279 languages

What is Forvo?

Forvo is the largest pronunciation guide in the world. Ever wondered how a word is pronounced? Ask for that word or name, and another user will pronounce it for you. You can also help others by recording your pronunciations in your own language. 
via forvo.com

 

Excogigating a Sweven of Apricity - Great Archaic Words

Nohr _Whisperers to this Archaic Growth
The English language is a magnificent body of words which has grown to its huge extent by absorbing words from all other languages it has encountered. Because of this absorbance of words, and the natural evolution of languages, we have lost from daily use many words as new ones take their place. Here are twenty words I feel are perfectly good for day to day use and deserve to be given an airing more often. If you don’t agree, be aware that I am willing to puzzle you. by LordZB
via listverse.com

 

 

2011 Scrabble championship final board

"From the Scrabble Association's website, where you can replay this game move-by-move, and do the same with 30 other games from the tournament."
via tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com

 

Latin Roots {gen} & Other Word Games : Word Dynamo

 

Choose a Game

  • Match

    Match
    Match each word to its definition

    match

 

 

  • Crossword

    Crossword
    Play these words in a crossword puzzle.

    crosswords

 

 

  • Listen

    Listen
    Hear the word and select its definition

    listen

 

 

  • Write

    Write
    Type the word that matches the definition

    write

 

 

  • Flashcards

    Flashcards
    Practice terms and definitions at your own place

    flashcards

via dynamo.dictionary.com

Vocabulary Test

"Test Your Vocab is part of an American-Brazilian research project “to measure vocabulary sizes according to age and education, and particularly to compare native learning rates with foreign language classroom learning rates.” (The Brazilian project hasn’t launched yet.) The first part of the test determines general vocabulary level; the second part has “a larger but narrower selection of words to determine the vocabulary level with greater precision.”"  

Take the test here 

 

Awesomely Untranslatable Words and More

"There are at least 250,000 words in the English language. However, to think that English – or any language – could hold enough expression to convey the entirety of the human experience is as arrogant of an assumption as it is naive."  

   

"When linguists refer to “untranslatable” words, the idea is not that a word cannot somehow be explained in another language, but that part of the essence of the word is lost as it crosses from one language to another. This often is due to different social and cultural contexts that have shaped how the word is used"  

   

 

Google Labs - Books Ngram Viewer : Graph the occurance of words over time...

The graph above charts the occurance of the word "word" from 1500 to 2000.
An n-gram is a subsequence of n items from a given sequence.
The items in question can be phonemes, syllables, letters, words or base pairs according to the application.