fileg's flight

The International House of Logorrhea, a free online dictionary of weird and unusual words to help enhance your vocabulary.


The International House of Logorrhea is the sort of site I love, but don't really use effectively as intended - I'm not really good at looking for an alternate word in the midst of writing; it breaks my flow.

I do play with Thesaurus style reference while editing, but I'm still more likely to beat myself about the brain than to actually look words up.

But I am the kind of logophile who loves to read this type of reference.( I was a great dictionary reader starting as a kid. I really don't understand people who can just look up a single word without being led down a never ending path.) If I can cram them into my brain, I can use them that way.

Anyway, I thought I'd share this link, in case you are one of any category of word reference users.

It includes interesting glossary groupings, which I am hoping I might use during the my process, and it is a component of The Phrontistery, which has many other free word lists and unusual word related resources.

Bottomer and Foamier pointed wildly to this while I was spell checking today. Nice myth structure for me!

Aragorn, try: Arragon, Argon, Paragon, Dragon, Oregon, Dragoon, Aaron, Arron, Aron, Tarragon, Argonne, Acorn, Origin, Arraign

------

have to add this:
vambraces - try: embraces, embracer's, Ambrose's, Ambros's, Ambrosi's, Ambrosius

A previous incident of spell checker madness led to my husband's habit of referring to Boromir and Faramir as Boomer and Farmer.

I was in a new spell check today, and it gave me these choices for Faramir - some of which I adore, and will mark:

For Faramir, try: Fara mir, Fara-mir, Framer, Frame, Laramie, Farmer, Ramie, Fara, Farr, Farm, Paramour, Farrier, Foamier, Framers, Framing, Frasier, Frazier, From, Farah, Fermi, Farer, Farad, Frail (hey, that's not true! It's fanon, dammit!)



ok, so then I had to look up the Big Guy, too:
(check out that last bolded entry, and tell me how long it took you to stop laughing!)

For Boromir, try: Broome, broom, Byrom, bosomier, boomer, roomier, brim, bromide, bromine, brooming, boron, broodier, boom, bottomer, brooms, roomer, Bloomer, Bram, Brodie, bloomer, borer, broom's, broomed, Boris, boric, bosom, broil, brooder, groomer



off to write a drabble about Bottomer and Foamier....

Chris cajoled me out at some ungodly hour (it was daylight! Arrrgh!) and we traveled companionably along beside the Delaware River. Everything was gold, the light, the leaves, the contentment. We were in search of images, but we found few. We did have a great time, managed not to get lost following a detour (an achievement of epic proportions - generally Jim and Chris can both manage to miss a well known exit if I'm in the car - apparently it has something to do with the fact that I never shut up)

In and out of over-warmed little shops, a surfeit of incense and candles, Chris smelling warm and deliciously of grapefruit and vanilla, me developing a desire for a carving of harvest mice in late wheat...

We found ourselves in the children's section of the bookstore, looking for Yulies (christmas presents). In a bookstore, Chris and I are song with a chorus that goes: "Look! I love that book!" And while Chris selected a volume of traditional fairytales for her niece, I found a section of reprints of Rosemary Sutcliff. I replaced all my Roman Britain volumes a few years back, but I can never resist picking them up and holding them in my hands. Sutcliff was one of the writers I loved as a kid, but I had not realized just how much her actual writing style affected me -- there it was, the elusive tone and voice I hear in my head when I am trying to capture words in a net made of paper. I found out today that Chris had never read her, So I opened Dragon Slayer, (her retelling of Beowulf) at random and read a random line aloud:

She was of the same kind as Grendel, monstrous, evil, a Death-Shadow-In-The-Dark; but she had possessed the power to love, and she had loved her son, and was therefore more terrible than he had ever been.


*sigh*