It provides every kind of dictionary resource under the sun. Whether you need to look up the most obscure word, translate between languages, learn to write your name in 14 languages, play word games or convert currency prices, yourdictionary.com is the Web site to check out.
It states its mission on the Web page and does well living up to it: "yourdictionary.com provides the most comprehensive and authoritative portal for language with 2,500 dictionaries and language grammars, representing more than 300 languages ... yourdictionary.com, Inc. creates custom-made dictionaries, glossaries, and word filters, translates from any language to another and offers a top-quality brand naming service."
One particular section is great for the random-news guru, and that's the Top Ten Word Lists. It includes the No. 1 word from 2002: misunderestimate - what President Bush's opponents have learned not to do in his own words.
It also includes Top Ten Personal Names, Top Ten California Youth Speak Words and Top Phrases.
A highlight is Top Five Words Miscoined by President Bush (Bushisms), such as "foreign-handed," which is to understand the complexity of geopolitical realities from the various global perspectives, as in "I have foreign-handed foreign policy."
There is also a Top Advertising Word List and the Most Frequently Spoken Word on the Planet: "O.K."
The website provides a detailed history of everyone's most frequently spoken word, "O.K." "O.K." originated in an 1830s joke spelled "Oll Korrekt" in Boston newspapers. The joke was that both words were incorrect ("All Correct" being the right spelling). It became so popular that it was soon abbreviated to simply "O.K." Despite its popularity the word would have fallen by the wayside had not Martin van Buren - called "Old Kinderhook" for being born in Kinderhook, N.Y. -used it in his presidential re-election campaign of 1840. So don't "misunderestimate" the impact of presidential usage on the growth of common vocabulary.
