Social Communications

I’ve been meaning to blog about Wordia for ages; firstly cos it’s the brainchild of a good mate of mine and I want to see it succeed, and secondly because I think it’s a great idea!

So, essentially Wordia is an online visual dictionary except that in true read/write web style it’s democratised: Anyone can create ‘their’ definition of a word, wrap it in a context that is meaningful to them (and hopefully others) and upload it to the site for the community to vote on. For example, here’s Dwain Chambers defining ‘challenge’.

I think this is useful for a number of reasons:

1) I have a dictionary well within arm’s reach on my desk but I never use it. I just type the word into Google and see if I’ve got it right (shocking, I know but there you are!). If the wordia definition of the word features highly that will help me and also provide me with a number of other contexts in which the word might be used.

2) It’s a great way to capture neologisms. I, for example, have invented the term web5.0 (I’m playing the long game ) so I should really get on Wordia and define what I mean so that when everyone else catches on they will know that I was the first to use the term and praise me for my originality and insight……….(or flame me)

3) It might help to get people interested in language. I’ve always been more interested in English language than English literature (I like both, but the hows and the whys of the language intrigue me a little more).

4) Related to point 2, I think Wordia could be a great way for academics to reach a new audience. It would be great if a few science types define some often used but less often understood words for the rest of us. Even better if some Business School people got on there and guided us through the lexicon of the recession: it would make academia relevant in a way that sometimes it isn’t.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a great video from Quentin Blake defining ‘illustration’.

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