Bad Grammar Indeed

Found on Tumblr

Vocab Mindmap II

Get the .pdf

I like to be up-front about my nerdiness. I'm proud about it. Like any good nerd, my pet topics are, in general, multidisciplinary. I think it's vital to the title Nerd that one be eclectic in their curiosities. In particular- I express my nerdiness as a logophile by making mindmaps of good words, more or less as I encounter them. Perhaps I haven't seen these words in awhile or maybe I just haven't seen them at all. Visualizing things like this has really made a difference in my vocabulary, and has done wonders for my memory in general. I can only speak for myself, but I'm sure others would do well to give this a shot.

This is the second mind map I've posted here [here's the first], and like the 48th I've made using the free version of Mindnode for Mac.

Evolution of the Roman Alphabet

Hard to say who made this and why (tell me if you know), but this really simple animated .gif I just dug up does a great job of demonstrating the development of the latin alphabet. Thanks to whomever cobbled it together back in 2007- the .gif, that is, not the writing system.

It's one alphabet that is very close to my heart, so I hope you take time to appreciate it. 

Bonus word: 

Syllabary - n. a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables

Words I Learned Today from the Phrontistery

Artist: Joseph Kosuth. Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.

I am free now to be academically indulgent and just because I found a whole bunch of words today related to colo(u)r. The Phrontistery [n. a thinking place; Gr phrontisterion from phrontistes a thinker, from phroneein to think] is a veritable shrine to lexical intrepidity, claiming the International House of Logorrhea, a dictionary of obscure words, the Compendium of Lost Words, and "many other glossaries, word lists, essays". In short, loads of etymological related goodness. 

One treat is a list of 168 of the most antiquated, recherché, and useful terms describing color that stretches way beyond that of your more common, pedestrian rainbows. Selected favs:

Amaranthine : a dark reddish purple color; eternal, infinite; of or related to the amaranth plant; of an imaginary flower that never fades

Eau-de-nil : a pale yellowish green color (like the Nile, presumably)

Ferruginous : rust colored; containing iron; brown approaching yellow

Gamboge : a strong yellow color; partially transparent dark mustard yellow pigment

Greige : hilariously, it's a color "between gray and beige, closely akin to the [even more blandly, accurately named] taupe"

Lurid : doesn't just mean "unnaturally or unpleasantly vivid in color" but especially when applied to red-yellow and yellow-brown mixtures (which is why an alternate meaning of lurid is "shining with an unnatural red glow as of fire seen through smoke; 'a lurid sunset'; "lurid flames'")

Umber : brownish red; obtained from natural clays variously colored by the oxides of iron and manganese

Rhodopsin : "visual purple" further defined as "a red photopigment in the retinal rods of vertebrates"

Vermeil : bright scarlet red or vermillion color; gilded silver

Viridian : chrome green; a bluish green pigment made from a foam of chromic oxide

I'm sure there will be a mindmap accompanying this post someday, since vocabulary building is one of my favorite applications of mindmaps. Watch for it maybehaps. [P.S. -a bonus, very thorough etymology dictionary. Enjoy seeing how mindblowingly embedded language is in itself. ]

Personal Lexicon Mindmap

[click for mediafire link to .pdf]

Mindmaps are powerful visual representations of ideas with an focus on creativity. Their uses go on and on and I'm just starting to pick them up myself.
This is a simple one I made of some new-to-me vocab words
[made using the clean and quasi-minimalist MindNode].

Go on, at least give both of 'em a perfunctory glance.

Related Resources:

Mindmapping Software Blog

How to mind map via LiteMind

100 Uses for Mind Maps

Ommwriter humanizes the writing process

Traveling for the holiday last week has left my nerves shot. Despite being drained, this simple program is having the amazing effect of reinvigorating my will to quill.

Visually sparse and simple, the full-screen word processor is blessedly limited; here is where you can write. Nothing else. As far as I can figure, the only key shortcut in the whole program is that hitting escape will spell check. For the first time I have ever seen, there are options for ambient music to help create a non-invasive, relaxed atmosphere. I have made a habit of listening to birdsong lately, but I didn't expect to have it as a preset. Far friendlier than MSWord.

(...which I'd ditch no matter what for the excellent and free NeoOffice for work or school papers and the like. But for blogging, journaling, writing letters, gathering your thoughts, or any kind of creative writing, Ommwriter seems well suited. Basically, there is no reason to have to pay for any word processors or Microsoft products. Ever.)

The program might be more flexible though, if one could upload any image they like as the background or go beyond the few preset looped tracks. But then it would lose its charm. Check it out before it gets anymore developed, or make suggestions to support it being kept nice and zen.

I'm now going to put together a presentation on developmental psychology, since this program has got me feeling so oddly calm about the whole thing. Don't be mistaken, you won't get to read it.