To Thesaurus or Not to Thesaurus by Deb Loughead

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How much do I love the online thesaurus? I remember a fellow participant in a writing class once upon a time back in the mid 90s, telling me that a good writer would never need to use a thesaurus. Because using one for some reason makes you less authentic. Or something absurd like that. I begged to differ then and I still do now, scoffing at her claim as my well-thumbed and dog-eared Roget’s awaited my next writing session on my desk at home. 

Roget’s Thesaurus has been around forever, created way back in 1805 by Peter Mark Roget, who was a lexicographer and physician, among other things. It has been the go-to for synonyms for actual centuries! It became a bit of a debate at the time, but most classmates agreed that having a thesaurus on your desk could be extremely helpful, if you didn’t let it bog down your writing with uncommon, pompous or pretentious words a là Conrad Black. 

I’m not sure about you, but whenever I’m deep in writing mode, I don’t have time to stop and think, which sounds bizarre, but it’s true. When my busy brain is leaking words and I’m forced to start wracking said brain for a synonym, well that’s just counter-productive to the task at hand. When brilliant words and sentences are flashing out of my fingertips like Captain Marvel’s cosmic energy blasts, I don’t have a lot of time to pause and figure out a substitute for a word I might have already used too often. Especially since there are so  many possibilities floating around out there. So I turn to my smart phone, tap in the word that requires a synonym, and presto, dozens of words fill the screen instantly, saving me so much precious time. 

Back in the day, of course, you actually had to open a book and turn the pages to locate the word that needed an upgrade. Hence my poor, tattered, and now apparently entirely vanquished Rogets Thesaurus, probably discarded during one of my mad book purges, some of which I still regret. I actually just looked up synonyms for the word ‘vanquished’ to see if I could use it appropriately in that previous sentence, and yes, it really kind of works in a variety of different ways. I might have also chosen to use ‘demolished’ or ‘pulverized’ or ‘destroyed’ or ‘annihilated’. Then again, I might have used jettisoned. I’d better look up synonyms for that one. 

Hmmm. There’s ‘relinquished’ or ‘abandoned’ or ‘forsaken’ or ‘ditched’.

And wow, here I am, lost yet again in the black hole of the internet, overthinking, wasting time doing deep searches that aren’t even necessary. Might be time to head out and buy myself an actual brand new softcover edition of the good old Roget’s Thesaurus. 

Might just turn out to be a time saver in the long run!

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