dictionary.com

I spend an unusual amount of time using dictionary.com. I use it for scholarly purposes: I look up the meanings of words, and I use the thesaurus section every single time I'm writing a paper. I use it to make sure I'm spelling words correctly, and I also use it to help figure out how to pronounce certain words. (I have often pondered why some words are pronounced by a woman, and others a man. Why don't they just use the same person for all of them? Maybe they didn't want to have a gender bias.)

But I also use it for entertainment purposes. I like to check out the Word of the Day (today's was "burlesque" but I already knew that one so I was kind of disappointed) and the Question of the Day. I also like checking out the "The Hot Word" blog. As you can see, I use it a lot. I'm a giant word dork. But I think it's kind of an interesting website in general.

There's little "Did you know:" factoids at the top of the pages, and I found one that said: Did you know that pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest word we have? I'm still unsure if that means it is the longest word on dictionary.com, or if it is the longest word ever. Either way, that is one crazy long word, right? (You should go check it out just so you can click on the little microphone thing to hear the guy say it aloud. It sounds funny.) I had to click on it and find out what it meant. It is the term used for people who have lung damage that involves inhaling volcanic ash.

So check out http://www.dictionary.com/. It makes me feel smarter.