Resource of the Week #49: A.Word.A.Day

Hello again. This week’s resource is for people who enjoy language and want to know more about English-language words.

The resource is called A.Word.A.Day. One can subscribe for free.

If you subscribe, each weekday you’ll receive an e-mail message about a word. The message includes the pronunciation of the word, the meaning, the derivation, and one or more quotations showing how the word has been used.

Many of the words are unusual, but some are common. Different weeks have different themes, such “words derived from the names of places” and “words borrowed from French”.

In addition, the message includes “a thought for today” (a thought-provoking quotation). Recently the quotation was one especially relevant to AuthorAID:

We should not write so that it is possible for the reader to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us. -Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus), rhetorician (c. 35-100)

Messages from previous days—going back to 1994, when A.Word.A.Day began—appear in the archives.

A.Word.A.Day is headed by Anu Garg, who started it while a graduate student in computer science. My thanks to him and his team for an informative and enjoyable service!

Until the next post— Barbara