Wonders of Wikipedia WOTD

    It’s like one of those spy movies where they find out the password by dusting fingerprints on a pin pad. There are only two spots on my kitchen clock touchscreen that aren’t plastered with a little invisible coat of dust: the Clock button and the Word of the Day button. As someone who loves to write little detached snippets of fiction, I find Word of the Days delightful. 

    That said, reading the definition for a single word does not compare to the miracle of Wikipedia’s daily mailing list. I found this entirely by accident while searching for a way to get the daily featured quote. It comes with a cute little nutshell of an article, some events that happened on this very day of history, a word of the day (of course), and a quote! The quotes are endlessly amusing—either wise or bewilderingly unconventional in their opinion. For an archive of this incredible and bizarre compilation, spend the rest of your afternoon here!

    The Wiktionary word of the day is also unique in that it’s generally safe to assume I have no idea that the term existed prior to opening the email. To create a colourful, rare tone in writing, the WOTD archive has plenty of quirky words that look like too much fun. Another entertaining feature of Wiktionary is its foreign word of the day. Different languages have a wealth of words that just don’t exist anywhere else. For instance, today I learned that there’s a Russian word for when something is “under the fingernail” which is not only charmingly specific, but has its own dark backstory involving medieval torture.

Lastly (although I can’t promise to entirely move on from the topic of Wikipedia in the future), the Wikipedia API was used to create this cool website that illustrates Wikipedia edits in real time. If you click on them, you can see the change as well as discover the respective article written. It’s almost surreal to imagine that every edit was made by a real person with a real interest in the obscure topic. Regardless, it’s impossible not to be mesmerized.

Whether it’s a passion for writing or a passion for really anything else that has existed at one point in time, Wikipedia provides an internet rabbit hole for everyone. In any case, it certainly has more to offer than just one button on a kitchen clock.