For Black History Month, try using the Visual Thesaurus to help explore notable African American writings. Check out this lesson plan designed to help students interpret figurative language in Toni Morrison's novel A Mercy.

The Visual Thesaurus will have an exhibit at the 2011 Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) at the Austin Convention Center. Visit us at Booth #1944! Click here for conference details.

If I'm feeling "down" or overwhelmed, nothing improves my mood faster than cleaning a desk, a drawer or a closet. Call me deranged, but I adore organizing. Perhaps that's why I was so happy a few years ago to stumble across the marvelous website Unclutterer hosted by Erin Doland. I skim through it every day.

Now, after interviewing her for this article I am, frankly, gobsmacked.  Continue reading...

Last week, President Barack Obama sent Americans running to the dictionary when he called Democrats opposing his compromise on tax cuts "sanctimonious."  Continue reading...

This weekend, the movie "The King's Speech" gets its nationwide release in the United States, and it's already getting talked about as a front-runner for the Oscars. It has also received a great deal of buzz in the speech therapy community for its sensitive and credible depiction of King George VI's speech impediment and the methods that his therapist Lionel Logue used to overcome it. I take a look at the movie and the real-life story in my latest On Language column, appearing in the Oscars issue of the New York Times Magazine.  Continue reading...

The latest movie installment of C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia" is in the theaters, and Jeremy Marshall, a researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary, celebrates by digging into Narnia's fantastic world of dryads, boggles, and orknies. Read Marshall's post on OUPblog here.

Writing offers many advantages as a medium for thought. Writing can be accurate: true in detail to fact and nuance; versatile: no subject is beyond its grasp; imperishable: first editions return in time to dust, but texts can be reprinted; economical: a slim volume can hold a treasury of ideas.  Continue reading...