Where I Check Place and Time, Facts and Words

[paulamcg]

Tutorials? Fandom Primers? Ship Manifestos? Info Posts? How-to Guides? Writing Resources? Helpful Links?

Challenge #11

In your own space, recommend a fannish or creative resource.



I doubt I’ve got much to offer in this challenge.

I use Harry Potter Lexicon occasionally, mainly for something like how the name of Madam Puddifoot’s tea shop is spelled. I found out about the existence of HP Lexicon late, a few years after starting to write fic, and I still prefer checking canon facts in the text of the novels. There’s a lot in the Lexicon that I don’t consider part of canon, and I appreciate it how it’s mark where such details like Lupin’s middle name derive from.

I use Wikipedia for finding out facts like which archaeological discoveries were made or which albums were released in a given year.

Google is my quick way to start my search for resources about any topic – from birds in Scotland to clubs or weather in 1970s London. (I’ve now got a favourite site for the weather but it doesn’t work at the moment.)

I haven’t got a regular site for checking the exact moonrise and moonset times, but this one’s now my favourite for checking dates/days of week, moon phases and holidays:
https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=1978&country=9. (you can, of course, choose any year and country).

I confess that I haven’t got one trusted online dictionary. I use Wiktionary for checking the spelling and notes on usage, and in more complicated cases I usually just google the phrase with the word “meaning” (or “British” if I want to check that the phrase is used in UK) and check several resources.

I’d appreciate any advise in using these resources better or choosing better ones.

Comments

[nachodiablo]

Time and date is an awesome resource!

[paulamcg]

You, too, like this one? I used to google Calendar 1978 (or whatever) UK, and then realised this one was the most convenient of the search results.

[pink_ink]

ahhh, i had forgotten about the harry potter lexicon! thank you for the source!

not sure if this is helpful but i use google as a language corpus? when trying to find out whether a certain colloquialism would work in british english i google it and then add "inurl:co.uk" for example. and then google will only search sites with "co.uk" in their url. if it gets low hits, i know it doesn't work in british english.
(also if you do this too often google will make you do a captcha xD)

[paulamcg]

Oh, I’m glad I’ve managed to include something not everyone knew and also remembered. I wonder if people now prefer Harry Potter Wiki. And thank you for the tips for checking if a colloquialism works in British English!

[lee_bella]

I use timeanddate.com for checking moon phases and past weather too. My go-to online dictionary is Lexico, though I'm still using my trusty paper dictionary.

[paulamcg]

Thank you! Your comment makes me ever happier that I posted for this challenge, too.

Lexico, which I hadn’t seen before, looks nice. And now I’m looking more closely at timeanddate, as I’d used only that part of it which I’d found when googling calendar. It doesn’t seem to have earlier weather than back to 2009, though, or earlier moonphases or moonrise and moonset time than 2000, but for moonrise and moonset I can reconcile myself with approximate times of the same moonphase in the same month in any year – even now that I’ve got so fond of making this kind of details in my (werewolf) fic accurate.

I could actually resort more often to the English dictionary on my bookshelf – perhaps particularly because it was printed in 1978.

[lee_bella]

I was lucky since I only needed to know the weather and the moon phases in 2009 -- and sometimes for the eclipses. For earlier weather I'd have to google and hope for the best.

Anyway, I did a search and found a UK moon phase site that might help you. It goes way back to 1950: MoonPhases.co.uk. When you click on a particular day on the calendar, the moonrise time and the moonset time are shown on the side bar.

[paulamcg]

Oh, this site you’ve now found is fabulous – both beautiful and informative! Doing the search for me, you’ve really committed an act of kindness and filled the following Challenge, too.

I’ve recently written fics set in the 1970s, but now this tempts me to write a story in which some exact timings really serve a purpose, and it could even be about my werewolf being bitten, since this site goes so far back in time :) Thank you so much, also for adding the instructions, as it often takes me quite a while to figure out things.

[lee_bella]

I'm glad you find the site useful; the site will be helpful for me too. :)

[paulamcg]

In any case you’ve been wonderfully kind to help me. :)