100 million word British National Corpus.

[M56]

http://view.byu.edu/

BNC remote access.

Try it out.

[Tdol]

An essential tool, especially since the demise of Cobuild online.

[Jing-Jo]

Nice work...thanks heaps. I was just wondering: how are you guys using this corpus? Are you using data from the corpus in the ESL/EFL classroom? Has anyone had any success with the corpus? On initial inspection it seems it could be a useful site; it's probably more useful for more advanced classes...anyhow, ขอบคุนครับ !

[Tdol]

I use concordancers for information, but I find that I have had much more success getting students to use Google for many concordancer type checks, presumably because of familiarity.

[M56]

I use concordancers for information, but I find that I have had much more success getting students to use Google for many concordancer type checks, presumably because of familiarity.

Google is good for concordancing, but fails on providing information on register.

And Google can't do nice little tricks like this (using un-x-ed adjective as a command.

UNEMPLOYED

UNEXPECTED

UNCHANGED

UNPRECEDENTED

UNWANTED

UNLIMITED

UNIFIED

UNMARRIED

UNRELATED

UNAFFECTED

UNPUBLISHED

UNUSED

UNTOUCHED

UNSKILLED

UNNOTICED

It goes on for as long as one wants. I obtained 500 words.

[M56]

I use concordancers for information, but I find that I have had much more success getting students to use Google for many concordancer type checks, presumably because of familiarity.

And this beauty: verb + a/the/some + way.

FIND A WAY

GO SOME WAY

PAVE THE WAY

LIKE THE WAY

OPEN THE WAY

CHANGE THE WAY

LEAD THE WAY

FIND SOME WAY

SEE THE WAY

AFFECT THE WAY

KNOW THE WAY

CLEAR THE WAY

GO THE WAY

PREPARE THE WAY

EXAMINE THE WAY

POINT THE WAY

UNDERSTAND THE WAY

SHOW THE WAY

FIND THE WAY

INFLUENCE THE WAY

It goes to 304 different combinations.

http://view.byu.edu/

[M56]

I use concordancers for information, but I find that I have had much more success getting students to use Google for many concordancer type checks, presumably because of familiarity.

And if you want to find out which adjectives are being used in the tabloids:

use [aj*] in the search box and highlight w_newsp_tabloid:

EX-WIGAN

HUSH-HUSH

SIX-NIGHT

SLUMP-HIT

SHAMED

TEENY

BAD-BOY

ADULTS-ONLY

MONTJUIC

BALL-TAMPERING

K-REG

POLO-PLAYING

TOP-SECURITY

WELL-DRAINED

17-STONE

REUNITED

VINNY

BOOZY

BELGIAN-BORN

ESSEX-BASED

MIXED-UP

SPOTTED

STAR-STRUCK

SURE-FIRE

TERMINALLY-ILL

SUB-TROPICAL

CORSICAN

EIGHT-MAN

HEAD-BUTTED

LOVE-STRUCK

MAN-EATING

MULTI-MILLION-POUND

http://view.byu.edu/

Luverly, innit?

[Red5]

Our Word Checker can: http://www.usingenglish.com/resource...hp?word=employ

Similar Words (using 'employ' as word stem):
Prefix + 'employ'

coemploy, disemploy, misemploy, nonemploy, reemploy, remploy, underemploy, unemploy,

'employ' + Suffix

employability, employable, employe, employed, employee, employees, employer, employers, employes, employing, employment, employments, employs,

[M56]

Our Word Checker can: http://www.usingenglish.com/resource...hp?word=employ

Similar Words (using 'employ' as word stem):
Prefix + 'employ'

coemploy, disemploy, misemploy, nonemploy, reemploy, remploy, underemploy, unemploy,

'employ' + Suffix

employability, employable, employe, employed, employee, employees, employer, employers, employes, employing, employment, employments, employs,

Like it!

There was a question on another forum about the semantic prosody of the expression "set in". The discussions on that expression are mainly about whether it has mainly negative associations or not, i.e. whether is is found collocated with negative cotext and context. A quick search in the BNC with * has set in bring this result as the prime expressions:

EROSION HAS SET IN

BOREDOM HAS SET IN

DECLINE HAS SET IN

PANIC HAS SET IN

YOU HAS SET IN

WEATHER HAS SET IN

UNISYS HAS SET IN

THAW HAS SET IN

THAT HAS SET IN

TELEKOM HAS SET IN

SPRING HAS SET IN

SHE HAS SET IN

ROUTINE HAS SET IN

ROT HAS SET IN

REALLY HAS SET IN

REALITY HAS SET IN

HYSTERIA HAS SET IN

FOSSILIZATION HAS SET IN

DECAY HAS SET IN

COLLAPSE HAS SET IN

DISILLUSIONMENT HAS SET IN

DISEASE HAS SET IN

DETERIORATION HAS SET IN

http://view.byu.edu/

--------------------
Surprised.

[Tdol]

Google is good for concordancing, but fails on providing information on register.

It has many limitations, but it is a very good way to get people started, and is good for frequency, geography, etc. If people look carefully at the results, they might be able to amalyse register themselves- if it's all fromm business texts, say, then that gives clues. It doesn't offer the clever searches, though.

www.onelook.com is another handy tool with wildcards for basic things like prefixes and suffixes.