Do you find yourself searching for the right words to express what you have to say — the words that convey the meanings and associations clearly?
Bloggers aim to engage readers interest with an interesting hook. Then, in their own writer’s voice, say what they have to say with personality and clarity. Compelling error-free content is what people expect when they visit a blog and once they have visited they expect to return and read more regularly. That’s why successful bloggers improve their language use and writing skills.
Writers Resources
Confusing Words is a collection of 3210 words that are troublesome to readers and writers. Words are grouped according to the way they are most often confused or misused. There are many ways to use Confusing Words. The goal is to help you find the word you are looking for in the fewest steps whether you know how to spell it or not.
General Dictionaries often omit words if they are too specialized, used only by professionals in a certain field of endeavor. So, if you are looking for a word that is only used in medicine, sewing, or the financial world, you need a specialty dictionary. You can google up a list and wade through them yourself, or you can go to alphaDictionary and find what you need.
Still looking for that perfect word or phrase? Try:
- Synonyms Thesaurus with Antonyms & Definitions
- rhymes, synonyms, definitions
- OneLook Reverse Dictionary - describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept.
The better you are at language use, the easier your writing is to read and the less chance there is of misunderstandings occurring. There are free tools online you can use like spelling and grammar checkers.
[Infographic provided by Grammar.net]
Visuwords™ is a useful free tool for for bloggers, writers, journalists, students, teachers and artists. You can use Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary to look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Visuwords™ uses Princeton University’s WordNet, an opensource database built by University students and language researchers.
- Enter words into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree.
- Click and drag the background to pan around and use the mouse wheel to zoom.
- Hover over nodes to see the definition and click and drag individual nodes to move them around to help clarify connections.
- The product is fascinating diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. I entered the word writing – click the link and see the result.
If you’d like to visit WordPress.com grammar blogs to improve your writing skills several are featured in The Daily Post article Focus On: Grammar Blogs.
This is a fantastic compilation. Thank you so much!
I’ve been reading various posts on your blog throughout the day today, and I am just loving your work. You’ve taught me so much already, and I have have so much left to read! :)
Hello there,
It’s good to read your feedback and you’re welcome.
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This will definitely help reinforce my limited vocabulary and help reading more posts.
Hi phoxis,
I hope these are helpful to you. I admire anyone who is struggling with learning another language. I know only one.
Hi phoxis,
I hope these are helpful to you. I admire anyone who is struggling with learning another language. I know only one.
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Woohoo….what a treasure trove. Thank you!!!!
That’s a heart warming response. You’re most welcome.
Great resources – thank you for sharing! I’ve not heard of these before, and will definitely check them out!
I’m so glad you think they will ne useful. :)
Delightful to learn that you and Jean took Latin. I took two years myself, and will always believe it did more to boost my vocabulary and my understanding of English grammar than anything else. Not bad for a “dead” language that continues to live on and do good… : )
Hi Mark,
Well that makes three of us who have benefited from learning a dead language. :D
I haven’t tried these sites.. thank you so much for sharing, how helpful these will be:D
Hi Barbara,
I sure hope these are useful. Try them out and let me know what you think.
I love the Visuwords site, thank you for sharing it :) It’s quite beautiful.
Hi Joanna,
I have used Visuwords many times. I’m so glad to hear you liked it. :)
Inspirational! Thank you for sharing this. It will help me improve my writing.
I need all the help I can get and I’m happy to share what I learn.
testing 6
The good news is that this worked. :)
Valuable resources! Writers of anything are — or should be — always looking for new sources, new information, new words, etc.
Thanks so much for sharing this. I bet many writers will make use of these resources, I know I will.
Great stuff. Yes, 4,5,6 have been misused. I’m not even familiar with proscribe. I actually used to love learning new word meanings or derivations. It’s probably based on the fact that I took 3 years of Latin voluntarily in high school. We did have a great teacher…for a “dead” language. To have 200+ Gr. 9 high students voluntarily enroll in the course, is a serious feat for that language. He made learning fun and piqued some interest in basic English language etymology (study of word meanings, origins).
That’s so interesting, Jean. I also took 3 years of Latin voluntarily. We also had a fabulous teacher who brought Latin all to life with slideshows and still photos, etc. I was an honor student. :)
A few more similiar life experiences. Weird! :) I was also in my mind, justifying it as a more “fun” choice than taking French. But in the end, the French language requirement bit me when I had to take French several years later (or a foreign language) in order to graduate with my university English lit. degree. It was mandatory at the university where I went (and I think a good requirement for anyone with an English lit. degree).
I took four years of Latin in high school. It was supposed to be good for college-bound students. Can’t say it was fun, but the vocabulary background has been invaluable over the years.
Thank you for all these resources.
I always look for words that mean the same thing but are different. It seems if a person uses a new word or a word that is not used very often, it draws readers into reading the post (don’t know why). Think the reader may wonder, “what in the world does that word mean?” Most of the time I have been using a Thesaurus in Webster’s online Dictionary, most of the time for my post titles. In my opinion, it seems like unusual words in a post title make people click to read the post.
The website you listed is wonderful, added it to my favorites. Love how you added that poster board photo to this post. I thought Wow, that’s an amazing and cool photo!
Switching from Webster’s to Visuwords, for sure. :) I am looking at the site where you found that little poster board photo, that is so neat and “artsy.”
The photos on this post are the best I have seen this week, well I mean that came from other websites, not original photos. I wonder if I could make my own little poster board thing like that using an app on my phone. Think maybe Instagram…Going to find one, that board is awesomely amazing. :)
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Thank you, thank you a thousand times. I will be making full use of these resources TT. I’ve been dead to the world of writing for a month or two but now my Muse has peeped round the door and things are looking up. This post is soooooo timely.
Ooh, i really like “Confusing Words”…definitely bookmarking that one. Thank you!!
What fabulous resources and information! There are certain words I’m always unsure about. I know “confusing words” will be a big help to me.
I love the Visuwords tool! What fun!
Think your blog is great. all the best with your health challenges.
Thank you for sharing this very helpful info. ;)
A very lovely and interesting blog you have ‘timethief’ :-) Thanks for helping and answering my questions about ‘liking’ something.