My mind works in weird ways

You know how Amazon and Netflix have that “based on your choices, we think you’d like this” feature? I know it’s often full of crap, and says things as bizarre as “Based on your interest in Battlestar Galactica, we think you’d really enjoy Party of Five,” but I would totally subscribe to a service that did the same thing for words.

No, not a thesaurus. I want words that are similar to each other in tone, in sound, in etymology, if not in meaning. I want to write a page full of words that derive from oriental societies, like shampoo, tattoo, and taboo. Except not so obvious as the assonance here. I want something like, “based on your interest in words once associated with the life of a Roman gladiator, we thought you’d like this word.”

One of my favorite research sites, Babynamer.com, has a feature kind of like this. When you go to a name, you can click on a list of related names, by sound, country of origin, meaning, popularity, etc. Love it.

Anyway, you’ll note that, because Patrick wanted me to, and Patrick’s wish is my command, this blog has now been updated to the new version. Which means that I shall be playing with labels forever more…