Where do you store the words you learn as you read?

topic posted Wed, December 6, 2006 - 11:14 AM by  Jen
I was just thinking today that it would be handy to find a website in existence that allows one to create his or her own web-based personal dictionary online. I'm a real word fanatic, and although I consider myself well-read, I often come across words, (esp. with recently moving here to work in the District and dealing with Congress, the Senate and such), with which I am unfamiliar. I definitely did not retain much from my high school government or college political science classes -- because who knew I would actually need to call that to memory again one day? So I'm constantly scribbling, looking up and saving the words and their definitions in a small pocket-size notebook.

Do you currently use a site to compile your own personal dictionary or repository of lingo, jargon, slang, words, etc? It would definitely need to be a website that provides the functionality to search or attach tags to the definitions or put them in alphabetical order or labeled groups, so that they could easily be accessed at a later date.

For now, I use my Blinklist at www.blinklist.com, which is the best Web 2.0 social bookmarking site, IMHO. But I'm curious to see what other methods others may be using.
posted by:
Jen
offline Jen
Washington, D.C.
  • While it's not precisely what you've described, you might still be interested in a new social software called Wordie: wordie.org/

    I haven't joined yet (just heard about it via Library Thing a week or two ago) but I must say, looking over the words on the opening page, I am tempted. How can I possibly resist the allure of "perdure", "rodomontade" and "verbigeration"? ;-)
  • I carry a pocket oxford with me wherever I go. I mark off every word I look up. sometimes I'll go through and look at those words, or sometimes when I find myself looking up a word a second time I just REALLY try to remember it.
    If the word isn't in there, I write it down in my journal (I have special pages that I save for this purpose...big list of words!) and lopok them up in the online dictionary.

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