1. Amazon.com
You may have heard of this website — a good place, I understand, to find books (or anything else manufactured). But what I appreciate even more is the “Search inside this book” link under the image of the book cover on most pages in the Books section.
No longer does one need to own a book or go to a bookstore or a library to thumb through it in search of that name or bon mot or expression you can’t quite remember. Even if you do have access to the book in question, it’s easier to search online (assuming you have a keyword in mind that’s proximal in location or locution to your evasive prey) than to try to remember on what part of what page in what part of the book you remember seeing something last week or last month or years ago.
Then, of course, there are the site’s “Frequently Bought Together” and “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” features—but the book search can be a writer’s salvation.
Newspaper editor Tom Mangan’s site lists reader contributions of clichés and redundancies.
3. The Chicago Manual of Style Online
My review of “The Chicago Manual of Style” notes that buying the bulky book, despite its abundance of useful information, is overkill for writers (but not editors), but editorial professionals of all kinds will benefit from the CMOS website’s Style Q&A feature, which responds authoritatively, sensibly, and often humorously to visitors’ queries.
The late Jane Straus, author of “The Blue Book on Grammar and Punctuation,” created this site to promote her book, but it also features many simple grammar lessons (with quizzes), as well as video lessons, an e-newsletter, and blog entries that discuss various grammar topics.
A useful key to proverbs, phrases from the Bible and Shakespeare, nautical expressions, and American idiom (the site originates in the United Kingdom), plus a feature called “Famous Last Words” and, for about $50 a year, subscription to a phrase thesaurus. (Subscribers include many well-known media companies and other businesses, as well as universities.)
6. The Vocabula Review The Principal Web Destination for Anyone Interested in Words and Language
Essays about language and usage; $25 per year by email, $35 for the print version.
7. The Word Detective Words and Language in a Humorous Vein on the Web Since 1995
This online version of Evan Morris’s newspaper column of the same name (some were also published in the book “The Word Detective”) features humorous Q&A entries about word origins.
This article first appeared on DailyWritingTips.com.
Source: PRDaily