Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Place Names

If you look closely at Arthur Denison’s map of Dinotopia in Journey to Chandara, you’ll notice a lot of place names that didn’t appear in previous editions. There are new towns with strange sounding names sprinkled across the island.

Let me reveal one of my favorite sources for these names: Merriam-Webster's 365 New Words Page-a-Day Calendar.

This curio cabinet of weird words is a daily delight in our household. When I find a word that I like, I tear it off and tuck it away in a file folder. Later I may use it to name a dinosaur, a character, a group, or a village. Here are a few of the words that I have collected and put to use in the new story.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What a fun way to collect place names. What does the one for Dinotopia say? Something about a disorder of vision?

Have you ever tried A Word A Day e-mails? You can sign up at awad.com and they send you a new word every day. I do this off and on and the new words I learn are quite mesmeric.