Reverse dictionaries are not so easily available as ordinary dictionaries from book shops. There are only a very few publishers who have published a reverse dictionary. In every book shop in Kerala, you can see a large variety of monolingual and bilingual dictionaries. But almost none of them sells a reverse dictionary. It may be because they do not know about a reverse dictionary or a reverse dictionary is not easily available for purchase. Moreover, the price of a reverse dictionary is much more than a layman can meet.OXFORD REVERSE DICTIONARY costs about Rs500.BERSTEIN REVERSE DICTIONARY costs about Rs1000.READER'S DIGEST REVERSE DICTIONARY costs more than Rs1000.WRITER'S DIGEST FLIP DICTIONARY costs more than Rs2000.
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Suppose you happen to see the word 'vexillology' while reading a book the meaning of which you do not know. Then you will seek the helpof an English - English dictionary in which you will see the definition of it as '(the) study of flags'.An English - English dictionary is known as a monolingual dictionary. An English - English - Malayalam dictionary or an English - Malayalam dictionary is called a bilingual dictionary. An English - Hindi - Malayalam dictionary is given the name a trilingual dictionary.Now think of your son coming to you and asking you "What is the one word for the study of ants?" No 'lingual' dictionaries can help you in this respect. Then what will you do? You must seek the help of a reverse dictionary in which the definition is followed by its apt word while in a 'lingual' dictionary the definition follows a word. In a reverse dictionary you look up the word 'ant' and under it you see 'study of ants : myrmecology'.Every one of you has, I am sure, one or more 'lingual' dictionaries. But how many of you have a reverse dictionary?
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DELINK is one of the many words like PREPONE coined most probably by Indian journalists. Unlike PREPONE, this word does not seem to have found a place in dictionaries.British journalists would probably use a paraphrase like 'remove/abolish the link between ..... and .....' to mean DELINK.
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Sitting at a table in a restaurant in England or America, you order a tea. Then the waiter may ask you "with or without". If you say "without", he or she will fetch you tea without milk.But if you say "without" in an Indian restaurant, you will get tea without sugar.
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CONTECT is not a misspelling of CONTACT; it is a verb meaning "to cover".CRYSAL is not a misspelling of CRYSTAL; it is a part of an archery bow.HOUSEBOTE is not a misspelling of HOUSEBOAT; it is wood allowed to a tenant for repairing a house.ORIGNAL is not a misspelling of ORIGINAL; it is the American moose.TECNOLOGY is not a misspelling of TECHNOLOGY; it is the study of children.WAREHOUS is not a misspelling of WAREHOUSE; it is the plural of "warehou", a fish found in Australia and New Zealand.
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You can't please all of the people all of the time, and the world is not full of academics . . . so it's not surprising that usages which are not to be found in Fowler are used on the air. They reflect more nearly the way most people use English.- Michael Lloyd, broadcaster, in a letter to The Listener
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Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) was an English poet, whose "The Highwayman", a short poem, is well-known. His surname NOYES attracted me very much because it contains NO and YES, the antonyms of each other. In English there are other such words that incorporate their opposite number. Such words are called SCHIZOIDS.S(HE)T(HERE)Y(OURS)OUTING (OUT, IN)HIGHLOWWELLINGTON (WELL, ILL)
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What is earth, Sexton? - A place to dig graves.What is earth, Rich man? - A place to work slaves.What is earth, Greybeard? - A place to grow old.What is earth, Miser? - A place to dig gold.What is earth, Schoolboy? - A place for my play.What is earth, Maiden? - A place to be gay.What is earth, Seamstress? - A place where I weep.What is earth, Sluggard? - A good place to sleep.What is earth, Soldier? - A place for a battle.What is earth, Herdsman? - A place to raise cattle.What is earth, Widow? - A place of true sorrow.What is earth, Tradesman? - I'll tell you tomorrow.What is earth, Sick man? - 'Tis nothing to me.What is earth, Sailor? - My home is the sea.What is earth, Statesman? - A place to win fame.What is earth, Author? - I'll write there my name.What is earth, Monarch? - For my realm it is given.What is earth, Christian? - The gateway of heaven.
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The word EQUIPMENTS are widely used in India. The people think that EQUIPMENTS is the plural of EQUIPMENT. Actually EQUIPMENT is an uncountable noun. Namely, it has no plural form. No dictionary records EQUIPMENTS as the plural of EQUIPMENT.
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Your father and my uncle ....... coming this afternoon from Dubai.Which word is to be used to fill in the blank - IS or ARE?It depends. If it is one person, use IS. If it is two persons, use ARE.
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I have an intimate friend named Lisa. You know what I mean is that Lisa is my close friend.Now look at the following sentences. Which of them denotes my close friendship with her?I am intimate with Lisa.I am very intimate with Lisa.You may think that both these sentences mean the same. If so, you are wrong. It is the second sentence that expresses my close friendship with Lisa. The first one means that 'I regularly have sex with Lisa.' The idiom 'be intimate with' carries the meaning 'have sex with someone.'Similarly, 'intimacy' has a double meaning: a close friendship or relationship; sexual activity.So the following sentence gives us two different ideas: She denied that she had intimacy with my brother.[Quoted from my book THE SEXY SIDE OF ENGLISH WORDS]
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Some words can be divided by sound into two or more different words. For example, COMPASSION can be split into COME and PASSION. Here are some other split words:DEPEND : DEEP ENDNOBLE : NO BULLPURPLE : PURR PULLDEPART : DEEP PART, DEEP ARTDEPLORE : DEEP LOREJUDGEMENT : JUDGE MEANTJUNCTION : JUNK SHUNLONESOME : LOAN SUMHANDSOME : HAND SOME, HAND SUMDREADFUL : DREAD FULL[an excerpt from my book THE FUNNY SIDE OF ENGLISH]
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Some words can be divided by sound into two or more different words. For example, COMPASSION can be split into COME and PASSION. Here are some other split words:DEPEND : DEEP ENDNOBLE : NO BULLPURPLE : PURR PULLDEPART : DEEP PART, DEEP ARTDEPLORE : DEEP LOREJUDGEMENT : JUDGE MEANTJUNCTION : JUNK SHUNLONESOME : LOAN SUMHANDSOME : HAND SOME, HAND SUMDREADFUL : DREAD FULL[an excerpt from my book THE FUNNY SIDE OF ENGLISH]
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The police have arrested a notorious car-lifter in New Delhi.When you read Indian newspapers you will see such words as car-lifter. This word was coined by some journalist, I think, on parallel with shop-lifter to mean a car thief. Shop-lifter is a real English word which means a person who steals goods from a shop during shopping hours. But a person who steals cars is called a car thief in Britain. In English dictionaries you will not see the word car-lifter. It its used only in India.Indians are very smart at coining words. We havechild-lifter, cycle-lifter, and sheep-lifter. All these words follow the pattern shop-lifter.Remember one thing: a car-lifter steals a car, achild-lifter steals a child, a cycle-lifter steals a cycle and a sheep-lifter steals a sheep while ashop-lifter does not steal a shop. He or she steals goods from a shop.
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EVERYBODY has a flavour of plurality. There should be several or many people when you say EVERYBODY. So can we day EVERYBODY ARE HAPPY?No is the answer. The word EVERYBODY is always considered a singular one. So we should always use a singular verb after EVERYBODY and say EVERYBODY IS HAPPY.
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BLACK TEA is tea without milk. WHITE TEA is tea with milk.Then what is BLACK MONEY? And WHITE MONEY?These two words are very familiar to Indians. Illegally earned money is called BLACK MONEY in India. Legally earned money is known as WHITE MONEY.
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Someone recently asked me which question tag he or she should use - negative or positive - in the following sentence:SHE IS UNABLE TO HELP YOU, .......?Please let me know what you will use.
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