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."

 Continue reading...

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...

Anu Garg, the creator of the popular Word.A.Day email we interview in this week's "Behind the Dictionary" feature, recommends these books on words and language:

Word Origins by Anatoly Liberman

Limits of Language by Mikael Parkvall

The Oxford Guide to World English by Tom McArthur

The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots by Calvert Watkins

Keen to read the "most fresshe and newe postes?" These sites celebrate the English of yore!

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog (Yes, folks, a blog written entirely in Middle English!)

Lectio Anglorum

Anglo-Saxon Aloud

Old English in New York

Unlocked Wordhoard

As every high school senior -- and parent of said senior -- knows all too well, now is crunch time for college applications. In her latest column, teacher Shannon Reed wrote an excellent guide to choosing the right college. Now we want to zero in on the big, hairy challenge to getting into that school: The personal essay. What should you write about? What should you not write about? To get the inside scoop, we called Richard Ries, AP English teacher and College Counseling Office essay advisor at Ben Lipson Hillel Community High School in North Miami Beach, FL. Here's our conversation:  Continue reading...

Shannon Reed is an award-winning playwright who teaches high school English to a large pack of bright young women at a private school on the beach in Queens, New York. She graciously contributed this column:

If you're a teacher, you've no doubt already have made the following observation: the two emotions that truly motivate a student are genuine interest... and fear. Many of us no doubt experienced this phenomenon ourselves when we were in school. I remember being motivated to do good work in three classes in high school: English and History, which I genuinely loved, and Earth Science, where the fearsome Mr. Colsun looked ever-ready to explode into a hellish ball of flame that would singe my eyebrows and ruin my complexion if I mislabeled the periodical table one more time. Mr. Colsun, I wish you ill, but to this day, I still know were mercury goes.

 Continue reading...