Before I get off of books and words completely, I have two sites to share today. They are opposites, in fact, and the perfect place to send gifted word-o-philes to play.
The first, Save the Words, allows you “adopt” old, obsolete yet fabulous words in order to prevent the pedestrianization of the English vocabulary. They even share suggestions for how to use your adopted word in order to increase its popularity.
I think I may need to re-read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Tipping Point to remind myself how to get my adopted words popular again.
How about having a child create a wordle of fifty obscure words? How about writing an acrostic poem from the word “obsolete” with words from the site?
The second site, Wordspy, promotes words on the opposite end of the spectrum – brand-new words. It bills itself as the word lovers guide to new new words.
I like today’s word:
