So you checked. You don't suffer from halitosis, no body odour problems, and you're not even bad-looking , but you just can't seem to make any breakthrough with people at social gatherings. Why? Well, it's probably because you're bad at conversations. You don't know where to begin, and when you do, you mostly don't have anything interesting to say.
Mostly, you're the person nursing a drink at the periphery of a party conversation, nodding sagely, at least that's the look you've been going for so far. But why stand at the edge when you can be bang in the middle of all the action; holding court, narrating anecdotes, and generally just appearing well-informed on anything and everything.
Here are seven websites, equipped with which, you can appear intelligent to almost anyone. Well, not everyone, but at least it's a start...
www.thefreedictionary.com This resource is one of the best places in Cyberia for any information of any sort. Besides dictionaries in English and 13 other languages, the site boasts of a thesaurus, a section for abbreviations, idioms, an encyclopaedia, as well as a literature reference library, and all supported by a nifty search engine. Daily visitors can also expect regular features such as word of the day, quote of the day, article of the day, this day in history, and so on. But my personal favourite has got to be the word game section , which includes Hangman and Spelling Bee. But I digress. Equipped with this resource, you can wax eloquent on practically anything under the sun.
www.acronymfinder.com Every now and then, someone might try to appear smarter by spewing out an acronym or abbreviation at you with a condescending smirk. But if you have bookmarked Acronym Finder in you browser, that's one less tactic they can use to make you feel stupid. Now, while it won't keep you informed about everything there is to know, at least it will help you mitigate your losses. This site has more than 7,50,000 'human-edited' definitions, abbreviations and acronyms about computers, technology, telecommunications, and the military. So bookmark it ASAP before people start ROTFL at your ignorance.
www.etymonline.com This site is all about polishing you into a fairly decent wordsmith. You know you can't have a conversation without being equipped with the right linguistic skills. Also, it always helps to know the root of words so you don't trip while trying to appear smart. Enter Etymonline. This resource will help you understand the origin, development, and the 'true sense' of a word. In simpler language, if you need to know the basis of any word in English, then this is the place to go to. Heck, it even covers "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" . You might want to look that one up while you're at it.
www.biography.com Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people . But how will you ever discuss people, if you know nothing about them? I suggest you make haste to this resource. Whether it's Pope John Paul II or Martin Luther King, Adolf Hitler or Winston Churchill , Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great, Princess Diana or Marilyn Monroe , you'll find all their biographies here; complete with photographs, videos snippets, etcetera. And on those nights when you don't have any social invites, visit Biography.com anyway. It definitely makes for interesting reading. True story.
wolframalpha.com How do I put this mildly without sounding like a fanboy? Wolframalpha is a search engine with a difference. Enter your birth date as a search parameter, and the engine will throw up details like the number of years, months and days you have spent on this planet; famous personalities that were born on the same day; the phase of the moon on the day you were born, etc. Enter in a colour, say 'pink', and it will throw up its RGB value, its hexadecimal code, complementary colours and the like. But don't take my word for it, go on, type in Mumbai and Tokyo in the box, and see what you get. Useless facts and statistics can be a great conversation opener.
www.pantheon.org and www.theoi.com Everyone likes a story, and mythology has always a good subject to mine for conversations . So for your fill of gods and demons, check out Pantheon.org and Theoi.com; both excellent places to start. While the latter only covers Grecian divinity (and does it exceedingly well), Pantheon includes mythological characters from across the globe: From our own Ganesha to the Greek Zeus, the Roman Jupiter to the Nordic Freya, from the Egyptian Anubis to the Aztec Quetzalcoatl. The gods, it seems, have made these two URLs their personal domain. So if the exploits of the gods has always been your Achilles' heel, then this site is your river Styx. Take a dip.
www.brainyquote.com So you've tried a few Siddhuisms, and you've managed to get a few guffaws out of your soft-headed friends. But now it's time to up the ante. If you're looking to impress people with higher IQs than your cronies, you must take recourse to BrainyQuote. The site is a repository of quotations from humourists, playwrights, presidents, authors, humanitarians and practically everybody who is anybody. Like someone famous said and I don't remember who, but you'll probably find the quote on the site itself: "Next to being witty, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit". I agree.
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