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This article
appeared in the Autumn 2001 edition of Short
Words, the newsletter of Tim Albert Training.
It was written by Tim Albert.
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The
Wonderful World of the Web
Tim Albert picks his way
through some sites that writers may find
useful
As someone brought up on books
and paper and pencils, I may know that there are many
interesting places out there on the World Wide Web. But
finding them is another matter.
So for this special edition
of Short Words I decided to ask some of my writing
mates to tell me of any sites they particularly
liked.
www.askoxford.com
Recommended by John Ezard of The Guardian 'Absolutely
teeming with material,' he wrote, 'virtually a one-stop shop
for anyone interested in the subject'.
I agree: huge amounts of
information on writing English can be found on this site.
When I checked, the home page (slogan: 'passionate about
writing') was offering a word of the day ('sockdolager'), a
little collection of quotes about cricket, and an essay on
smileys - plus links to global English, word games and
better writing.
www.guardian.co.uk
Click on Information, then Style guide. This will take you
to advice (or rules if you are working for The Guardian on
whether to hyphenate email (no it says, so I haven't) and to
capitalise a university department (again, no). It was
recommended by Wynford Hicks, author of the incomparable
English for Journalists (Routledge 1998) who points
out that it is regularly updated - and free.
www.webenglishteacher.com/fun.html
Margaret Cooter, technical editor at the BMJ, drew my
attention to this one, which is a wonderful resource for
those looking for some humour. It includes the spoof
guidelines on English grammar ('Verbs HAS to agree with
their subjects'), 'real' definitions ('It has long been
known' = 'I didn't look up the original reference') and ode
to a spellchecker: ('Eye halve a spelling checker…').
Fun.
www.timalbert.co.uk
Neville Goodman wrote: 'Despite being a techophile, I don't
think I've ever consciously gone to the web for writers'
goodies! (except your own, of course)'. Flattery perhaps,
but it gives me the opportunity to remind readers that we
offer news about our courses, questions and answers, book
reviews, and 'gripes and groans'. We sometimes offer
prizes.
www.bartleby.com/141/
One of the books we review is the incomparable The
elements of style by Strunk and White. Liz Wager,
peripatetic medical editor, has drawn to my attention that
the third edition is now available, in full, on this site.
If you haven't read it, and are too mean to buy the latest
edition, this will do.
www.aldaily.com
For something completely different, try Arts & Letters
Daily. It was recommended by our correspondent from New
Jersey, Leni Grossman, who writes: 'It looks like the front
page of an ideal newspaper that publishes only articles that
will interest you - literature, journals, magazines,
newspapers, culture, words, language, everything literary
and literate. And if you are a writer and none of these
things, well, what kind of writer can you possibly
be?'
Bad writing
(official)
'If, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the
uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt,
justification, pseudo-scientific theories, superstition,
spurious authorities and classifications can be seen in the
desperate effort to "normalise" formally the disturbance of
a discourse of splitting that violates the rational,
enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality.'
From The Location of
Culture (Routledge 1994) by Professor Homi K Bhabha. On
www.aldaily.com
03.09.01
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