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June 06, 2003
Genesis- if nothing else, read this
This started as my subjective collection of Idioms, Jargon and Compound words and I'm still working out by feel why some belong and others don't. There are too many idioms from too many regions to include them all.
I'm interested in general idioms used everyday, not adages or proverbs and I'm also attracted to the quirky. I also like idioms that convey striking images, or sounds.
Part of the purpose behind this site is to include idioms that are hard to find anywhere else in a form that very easy to search.
Another purpose is to explain the meaning of some sentences found in popular media for learners of English as a second language.
This entry will be a living document that will record my latest plans, concerns and works.
In addition to this thread about idioms, is another thread within the blog that explores stimulating examples of word usage, often taken from song lyrics and poetry (see Category: lyrics).
There is also another separate blog with entries for favourite idioms on the home for this site.
(if you wish to syndicate this site using RDF, there are 2 separate urls to syndicate:http://idiom-attic.com and http://idiom-attic.com/blog)
Also WhirlWord, a separate site which is a dictionary of idioms and compound words, will in addition explore what I think could be improved about the conventional format of dictionary entries, such as including a section of patterns of common usage. Many verbs for example are normally followed by certain prepositions and not others; this is not obvious to non-native speakers.
WhirlWord also includes some collections of words.
Some pretty odd word collections get in:
Oxymorons, Euphemisms, Onomatopoeic words, Insults, newly minted names, Newpaper News lingo and whatever else strikes my fancy.
Collections of News headlines and Newspaper lingo, Sportscaster terminology, and other jargons.
Collections of phrases that use Double (or more) negatives, and euphemisms in a collection I call Roundabout speech.
Collections of constructed words for new things that need to be named such as new car models or music albums.
Collections of Phrases with unusual sentence structures.
Collections of scrambled idioms and surreal idioms.
I may create an additional site for word games or concrete poetry.
Finally I am storing the idioms as dynamic phrase patterns to try capture many forms of a single idiom. I plan to use these patterns in generating sentances in different styles, and perhaps even try my hand eventually on creating a chatbot.
In future I 'd like to tranlate between styles of expressions: such as Roundabout speech, concise speech, slang, etc.
If these topics interest you please stay tuned and feel free to comment.
Today I added new Idioms:
revolving door
one is flush
one is dead set against it
New Compound words:
peripherally
Some words that didn't make the cut (this time):
constancy
butte
Posted by Andy at June 6, 2003 09:08 PM