Intro B: Useful Web Sites for AUE Participants

Last Revised 2003-08-05 (5 August 2003)
* = recently revised
~~ Contents of Intro B: Useful Web Sites for AUE Participants ~~

- Where to find previous postings
- Where to learn about ASCII IPA
- Learning English as a Foreign Language
- Audio Archives
- Word lists
- On-line dictionaries: general
* - On-line dictionaries: Historical and Special Purpose - Acronyms and abbreviations
- Sites on words and language
* - Writing and Grammar Guides On Line
- Encyclopedias & Search Engines
- British English
- Black English (African-American Vernacular English, Ebonics) - Historical English, and English Literature
~~
Where to find previous postings
~~
If you suspect your topic has already been discussed, even though it is not in the FAQ, please check for articles, following the appropriate search guidelines, at the Google Usenet archive, which holds articles since 1995:
group search
~~
Where to learn about ASCII IPA
~~
ASCII IPA is a way of expressing pronunciation on Usenet. It is a version of the International Phonetic Alphabet, using only the ASCII symbols (basic keyboard characters). There's a guide to ASCII IPA, including illustrative sound files, at
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/ascii ipa choice.html

A detailed specification of the ASCII IPA transcriptions scheme, including tables showing the mapping to and from IPA characters, can be found at
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/IPA/ascii-ipa.pdf
~~
Learning English as a Foreign Language
~~
Good entry points to the many resources on the Web are:

English as a Second Language
http://www.rong-chang.com/
Dave's ESL Cafe
http://www.eslcafe.com/
The Taiwan Teacher
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/1979/links.html

English as 2nd Language
&
ELTWEB
http://www.eltweb.com/
ESL Resources at Purdue University - covers common grammar issues http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/
1-language.com - The Comprehensive ESL Site
http://www.1-language.com
See also "Writing and Grammar Guides On Line," below.
~~
Audio Archives
~~
The a.u.e Audio Archive Listen to sound files of speakers from England, Canada, Ireland, and the US saying 'Bother, Father caught hot coffee in the car park' and other examples of differing accents. Reach via .

IDEA, the International Dialects of English Archive Large collection of MP3 speech files from around the world.
http://www.ukans.edu/~idea/
Fonetiks sound clips of 6 kinds of English plus 9 other languages http://www.fonetiks.org/
Pronunciation Voice of America - 3000 soundfiles of placenames & people http://ibb7.ibb.gov/pronunciations/
University of Lausanne Phonetics Course pronouncing sounds http://www.unil.ch/ling/english/phonetique/api-eng.html

~~
Word lists
~~
Brian Kelk maintains a Web page with pointers to numerous wordlists on the net - for UK English, US English and a number of other languages. Many are bare lists of words but some have other info. There is also information on word and letter frequency and on phonetic alphabets (Alpha Bravo). The page has recently moved to:
http://www.bckelk.uklinux.net/menu.html
The Moby Project has large downloadable lists of words: Hyphenator, 5-Language, Parts-of-Speech, Pronunciator (American), Shakespeare, Thesaurus, and American Words.
http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/research/ilash/Moby/
The National Puzzlers' League provides a search engine for words listed in a number of dictionaries (including W2 and SOED): http://www.puzzlers.org/secure/wordlists/grepdict.html
~~
On-line dictionaries: General
~~
Please look up simple questions of meaning and origin in a dictionary before posting to the group. There are now several large, recent dictionaries on-line to choose from.
Merriam-Webster Collegiate, 10th Edition, 1994. With US pronunciations. http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm
Onelook, which searches over 500 dictionaries at a single stroke. http://www.onelook.com/
Dictionary.com, based on the American Heritage Dictionary http://www.dictionary.com/
Cambridge International Dictionary, also Idioms & Phrasal Verbs /
American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms (select topic "language") http://xrefer.com/search.jsp/
Encarta World English Dictionary
http://dictionary.msn.com/
Macquarie Dictionary (Australian)
http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/
Random House Webster's College Dictionary (no etymology) http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopdict.html
The Web of On-line Dictionaries, with links to many bilingual, slang, hobby, science, etc, dictionaries:
http://www.yourdictionary.com/
Xrefer.com, with over 30 specialty dictionaries including slang, idioms, placenames, and quotations. Many are Oxford publications. http://www.xrefer.com/search.jsp/
Word Net - includes "X is a kind of..." and "X consists of..." http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn
~~ On-line dictionaries: Historical and Special Purpose ~~

Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language http://www.christiantech.com/
Webster's 1913 Revised Unabridged Dictionary
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/forms unrest/webster.form.html

The Century Dictionary, 1914 (12 volumes scanned): http://www.global-language.com/century/
The Oxford English Dictionary is available for a subscription fee: http://oed.com
Hobson-Jobson: Anglo-Indian Glossary, 1903
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/hobsonjobson/

*The Jargon Lexicon, the Jargon File or New Hacker's Dictionary - computer and hi-tech terms. Various copies on line including: http://catb.org/jargon/html/lexicon.html
~~
Acronyms and abbreviations
~~
Onelook (above) finds many initialisms. Two other searchable databases are:
http://www.ucc.ie/info/net/acronyms/acro.html
http://www.acronymfinder.com/
~~
Sites on words and language
~~
The a.u.e webmaster has arranged to link the indexes of many of these sites. Enter your search word once at the AUE Website and get links to each place the term is discussed.
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/
The Maven's Word of the Day (formerly Jesse's)
A dictionary editor answers word questions. Large archive. http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/
Common Errors in English Tips on hundreds of confusing words and pairs such as affect/effect, adapt/adopt, advice/advise, etc. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html
Michael Quinion, World Wide Words Discusses new words and the reappearance of old ones. Q&A section.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/
Evan Morris, The Word Detective Answers questions on origins of colorful words and phrases. Large archive.
http://www.word-detective.com
John Lawler A linguistics professor gives masterful explanations of how language really works
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue.html
sci.lang FAQ language and linguistics questions commonly asked http://www.zompist.com/langfaq.html
Take Our Word the Weekly Word-origin Webzine
http://takeourword.com/
Dave Wilton's Etymology Page
http://www.wordorigins.org/
Etymology Online
http://www.geocities.com/etymonline/
Sharp Points by Bill Walsh real-life copy editing dilemmas http://www.theslot.com/sharp.html
Atlas of North American English Maps and articles on regional dialects in the US. Knowledge of basic linguistics advised. http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono atlas/
Dialect Survey Maps and Results - Over 100 US regionalisms http://hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/maps.php
Word2Word links to dictionaries, translators, language sites, etc. http://www.word2word.com/dictionary.html
Fun with Words unusual words, lists of oddities, etc. http://rinkworks.com/words/
Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics http://www.wordways.com/
~~
Writing and Grammar Guides On Line
~~
Grammar and Style Notes by Jack Lynch
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/
Handbook of Style, by Merriam-Webster, Inc.
http://www.mae.ucsd.edu/mw/hanstyle.html
Guide to Grammar and Writing, by Charles Darling
http://ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index2.htm
Tenses in English learn "progressive," "continuous," etc. http://ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/tenses/tense frames.htm

The Online English Grammar, by Anthony Hughes
http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/toc.cfm
Verbix conjugate any English verb; other languages, too. http://www.verbix.com/languages/english.shtml
Two style guides for British publications:
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/styleguide/
http://www.economist.com/library/styleGuide/
Basics of diagramming sentences
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/langling/e360k/handouts/diagrams/

The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (select topic "language") /
Bartleby two US style guides: American Heritage Book of English Usage, and Strunk's Elements of Style (1916 edition) http://www.bartleby.com/
The Internet Grammar of English: modern grammar (word classes, etc.) http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/
The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
The Plain English Campaign: guides to writing letters, reports, etc. http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/freepub.html
*Garbl's Writing Resources On Line:
A descriptive list of links about writing, and a style manual http://garbl.home.comcast.net/writing/index.htm
Yahoo! Grammar & Usage A long list of sites.
Science/Linguistics and Human Languages/Lang uages/Specific Languages/English/Grammar Usage and Style/

Zuzu's Petals Literary Resource: A large and well-maintained collection of links on every aspect of writing. Look here to find style guides, copyright laws, and much more.
http://www.zuzu.com/homelink.htm
~~
Encyclopedias & Search Engines
~~
Sometimes, language questions are tied closely to history, science, geography, and other factual matters. Web search engines such as MetaCrawler, Google, and many others can help. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. For a list of 21 major search engines, go to: http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/links/Major Search Engines/The Maj or Search Engines/index.html
There are also on-line encyclopedias and "reference books":

Bartleby search two dozen reference works simultaneously, both recent and older. Includes Columbia Encyclopedia and quotation guides. http://www.bartleby.com/
Encarta encyclopedia
http://encarta.msn.com/default.asp
Refdesk - many references linked to a single home page http://www.refdesk.com/
~~
British English
~~
The American-British British-American Dictionary
http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/
Estuary English - recent developments in England
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/home.htm
The Best of British
http://www.effingpot.com/
~~ Black English (African-American Vernacular English, Ebonics) ~~

African American Vernacular English (Ebonics) by Jack Sidnell http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/aave.htm
The Center for Applied Linguistics: Ebonics Information Page http://www.cal.org/ebonics/
John Lawler on Ebonics: a statement by linguists, bibliography & links: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/ebonics.lsa.html

African-American History and Culture
http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/blackga.htm

Characteristic Features of AAVE
http://www.hf.ntnu.no/engelsk/staff/johannesson/111sos/L09-O04.htm
~~
Historical English, and English Literature
~~
Word Safari: Megalist of Word Links History Section: A good starting point with links to a number of sites on the development, grammar, pronunciation, and literature of Old English or Anglo-Saxon (example, Beowulf) and Middle English (example, Chaucer). http://home.earthlink.net/~ruthpett/safari/megalist.htm#Jump3

I have not yet found a good site about "Early Modern English," but you can use these two sites to search for your own usage examples:

Search Shakespeare sites
http://www.rhymezone.com/shakespeare/help/
http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/ (search single plays only)

Bible Gateway - Search the Bible (King James and other versions) http://bible.gospelcom.net/
A brief page on "Thou, Thee & Archaic Grammar" is now in the Grammar section of the AUE FAQ Supplement:
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/pronoun paradigms.html

Sites for "Modern English" literature from 1700-2000:

Bibliomania - search many classic novels and essays simultaneously. http://www.bibliomania.com/
Mastertexts - another quick-search site
http://www.mastertexts.com/
The On-Line Books Page thousands of works of literature that are available for free download & search. Includes Project Gutenberg titles. http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
Collins Cobuild Corpus Concordance Sampler - search for recent usages http://titania.cobuild.collins.co.uk/form.html
~~ ~~

This series of seven "Intro Documents" is intended to aid newcomers to the newsgroup. The articles are posted frequently here, and are also on the Web for your convenience, at:
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/
At that site, you will also find our full FAQ and other helpful information.
Comments and corrections to these Intro documents should be emailed to me. Donna Richoux