Wordnik, and Words Revisited

I came across a new web site today that piqued my interest in words and language. It's called Wordnik. It's like a dictionary (seemingly American definitions only), but it offers a lot more because it shows various uses of the word found around the internet - in lists, quotations and Twitter. My preferred dictionary web site remains Cambridge Dictionaries Online, but Wordnik certainly gets added to my list of useful sites.

I've written about such things before. I remain a big, big fan of Cricklers, and I still love the beauty of Visuwords. Attempting the daily Crickler is a great way to exercise your language and news skills (a kind of kata for words and news!). Paul Dunn's Visuwords is not only useful and functional, I just love the organic animation as new words appear.

We all have to communicate, it's part of our job. Like all other aspects of our professional life, we should strive to improve our skills and knowledge. This includes knowing how to use our writing and communication tools (such as email, word processor and slide presenter), plus increasing our knowledge of our own language (words, their meaning, and syntax).

As an exercise in the above, why not write a paper for your local SAS users group, or for SAS Global Forum?!