Anatomy!

Okay, I admit it, I'm generally kind of a tightass about what resources I'll use, especially online ones.  It's got to be the OED, Dorland's, the Merck Manual, Gray's Anatomy, etc.  I'm super excited, though, about a site I just found today which, while it does not have the authority of Gray's, is an excellent resource for anatomy.

Instant Anatomy is a site with a better interface than Gray's - a lot more user-friendly, if you know what I mean.  You basically can browse by clicking on pictures, and then you get a surprisingly informative graphic like this one showing the sciatic nerve.  It's not as detailed or in-depth as Gray's, but sometimes you just need to find out something real quick and don't want to read all about the triangles of the neck or whatever.  It will definitely be more useful for feedback, which makes me happy.

I hope you find it useful as well.  Let me know in comments how you like it, if you want.

When you go to kiss your honey and your nose is kinda runny...

Mucous and mucus. These are two words that get mixed up so often that I have a shortcut for feedback (qmuc). Yes, they are different, and here's why.

Mucous is an adjective most often used to modify the noun membrane.

Mucus is a noun meaning the icky slimy gross stuff (if you had a brother like mine it was also known by snot and other, more disgusting names that I must stop thinking about before I ralph all over the keyboard) that is secreted by mucous membranes.

Also I am a moron who can't figure out how to make colored text on this blog. :(

My thanks to Common Errors in English Usage, a very useful site that you should bookmark immediately, because it explains said common errors in plain language, and also sometimes has little stealth puns that will sneak up on you.

Question of the day

Why is subject-verb agreement a closed book to so many people? Didn't everyone else have to learn how to diagram sentences in school to learn which verb went with which subject and therefore how to make them agree?

It drives me crazy.

Edit for the purpose of being more helpful than bitchy: If you have no idea what I'm talking about, the Purdue Online Writing Lab has a helpful page to help you with subject-verb agreement.

Use this page! PLEASE! Before what's left of my brain congeals into a solid mass of gelatinous-cube type material that makes everything it touches shrivel and die!

Edit 2 (Electric Boogaloo): This is standing in for the LYNXPLZ post I was supposed to make yesterday, except I was being possessed by the spirit of Donna Reed, so I wasn't on the computer. LOL.

LYNXPLZ

There is a rant coming up, but I had to stop writing it because it was putting me in a bad mood. And when I say a bad mood I mean I was getting to the point where all I could think of to say was “RAWR STUPID DUMB HATE HATE HATE HATE!”

Anyway, because it’s Saturday I want to share a useful link. My plan is to do this every Saturday, because I have a GINORMOUS link library and want to share.

Today’s link is OneLook. This is a dictionary search engine that will search over 9000 dictionaries for whatever word you’re looking for, including Dorland’s Online. It will also let you search for words containing whatever you’re looking for, like if you have a *mumblemumble* cyst, you can search for phrases containing cyst.

Recently they’ve added searches where you can find words related to certain concepts, and also acronyms. The instructions for doing so are all on the front page of the site, so I won’t repeat them here, but really, use this link. It is the best word finder on the internet as far as I’m concerned.

Now, it’s the weekend, so go eat some chocolate or something.