Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative online destinations.
One of the great advantages of the World Wide Web is that resources that once occupied entire libraries are now available at the click of a mouse. Take the dictionary. Or in the case of this week's Website of the Week, shelf after virtual shelf of dictionaries.
LOVE: "It's a free online dictionary, which gives you definitions, thesaurus, spelling, pronunciation of words, etymology, and so forth. And then we have a whole language portal, which has thousands of links to other dictionaries including over 200 languages and hundreds of different vocational dictionaries and things like that."
Howard Love is CEO of the parent company of YourDictionary.com. It starts out with one of the most authoritative guides to American English, the American Heritage Dictionary, including spoken pronunciation guidance. But it's a also a gateway to regular dictionaries in over 200 languages that provide definitions on the one hand and also translation between, say, Kurdish and Swedish. I like some of the specialty references, like the Russian modern art glossary and the list of Arabic oilfield related terms. Love says there is added value in having all these varied word references in one place.
LOVE: "It allows people to easily browse and compare. So for example, we've got, I don't know, ten links to Danish grammar. Our users like it because they can kind of compare and contrast. And they may be dictionaries that are not easily found through typical search engines."
Beyond the dictionaries, there are other word-related features including puzzles, information on endangered languages, and more —
LOVE: "For example, the 100 most often misspelled words in the English language. In fact, often people misspell the word "misspell." You know, I think that's a real gem and there's another one and that's the 100 most often mispronounced words."
Those and many other great features all about words and languages at YourDictionary.com, or get the link from our site, voanews.com.
