Refrigerator Magnets, On the Internet?

At isnoop.net you can pretend that you're playing with refrigerator magnets on the Internet. You may think it has "bugs," or programming errors, when you place a word and a bunch of other words move. The reality, however, is that other people are playing with your so-called refrigerator. These people can play with your sentences and enhance it or remove it.

I think it's interesting to see what people like. Camryn and I liked the website and found it fun. On a scale of one to ten, I would give it a seven or six. We both wrote silly sentences, including "little duck found sheep people." To the right is a Wordle that shows all the words you can move around. Above is a screen grab from the site.

Save the Words

Student: Jennifer L.

Every year we chuckle when words like “staycation” or “unfriend” are admitted into our dictionaries. But we often forget about the other, venerable words that get bumped to make room. Feel bad? Fear not. Save the Words, a clever new Web site from Oxford University Press, is doing something about it.

The makers of the Oxford English Dictionary (which catalogs every word in English, ever) have developed the site based on the simple idea that a word won’t die if it gets used often enough. To that end, the site creatively displays a swath of at-risk words, each of which you may adopt by promising to use it at least once a day. This isn’t as easy as it might seem. Try, for instance, using “frutescent”—approaching the appearance of a shrub—or “archiloquy”—the first parts of a speech—naturally. But then, it may be better than speaking a language whose most interesting words come from clever rhymes and Facebook.

Write a news story about this website. Remember to include the five W's of a good news story: who, what, when, where, and why. Also, explain how someone can use this website. Add a link, at least one image, and several labels.

Also, include several of your favorite at risk words and their definitions.