In a dark and gloomy pit, deep in the bowels of the earth, a large and strongly muscled man rolls a heavy boulder up a steep hill. The task takes him the entire day. But when he gets to the top, ooophhhh, the stone escapes his grasp and rolls right back down to the bottom. So the next day he must begin all over again.

If you received a classical education, or if you simply enjoy mythology, you will recognize this story as the myth of Sisyphus from the Greeks. Poor Sisyphus never catches a break. The same damn stone rolls down the same hill every night and he must push it right back up again the next day. For eternity. So, my question to writers: Why are you behaving like Sisyphus?

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Cowboy talk above your huckleberry? Stop barkin' at the knot and check out these websites that decode the singular language of the American cowboy:

Texian Cowboy

Cowboy Term Dictionary

Carved Eggs

Cowboy and Rodeo Glossary

In this lesson, small groups of students will compete in a "shades of meaning" contest to see which group can use the VT to help them match words with similar definitions but different connotations in the shortest amount of time.  Continue reading...

We asked Shannon Reed, who contributed a recent "Teachers at Work" column on choosing colleges, to recommend books about the college admissions process. Here are her picks: (Thanks, Shannon!)

Fishing For a Major: What You Need to Know Before You Declare "I confess, I've never read this, but my students tell me it truly helped them. They like that it's written in a student-to-student style, which uses language they understand."

Profiles of American Colleges with CD-ROM "I do not believe the results of any survey, ever. And that includes all of those college ranking books. Plus, I don't need my students to mope through the rest of their senior year because their future university ranks only 38th on the "party schools" list. This guide suits my style far better, with detailed information on over 1600 schools in book and CD-ROM format. Hey, remember CD-ROMs? Never mind, we'll save that discussion for another day."

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Absolute Write bills itself as the "one-stop web home for professional and beginning writers. From newsletters to forums to columns to courses, it's got what word jockeys need! Check it out here.

Chef Terrance Brennan is the founder of Artisanal Premium Cheese, a company that practices the fine art of affinage -- the age-old craft of maturing and aging cheese to achieve peak flavor. He's also something of a cheese revolutionary -- a chef who's helped Americans discover and appreciate the sublime magic of handcrafted artisanal cheese (we'll get to that word in a minute). What better person to ask about cheese words?

Paste. "The body within the rind of the cheese, what the French call the 'pate.' In other words, the interior of the cheese."

Farmstead. "Cheese milked and produced from the same farm."

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Wordsmith.org is something of an institution on the Internet, an online community started by computer-engineer-turned-linguist Anu Garg back in 1994 that now reaches more than 600,000 subscribers in 200 countries with its daily A.Word.A.Day newsletter. This email is more than just a new word every day: Anu also adds a daily, delicious quote from his extensive literary readings to inspire, challenge -- and surprise -- us. The Visual Thesaurus is proud to sponsor A.Word.A.Day and delighted to speak with Anu about his own, latest, book, on "the hidden lives and strange origins of words" entitled, The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two. Our conversation:  Continue reading...