You asked, "when was the last time you used a thesaurus?"
Two minutes before reading your post. Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus in Dictionary form, edited by Barbara Ann Kipper, head lexicographer of the Princeton Language Institute.
It's a wonderful thesaurus that also gives a concepts index at the back. I used it this morning to look up "immerse" and "immersed", a favourite way of being, because I want to freewrite and dig more deeply into the idea.
I love your meandering posts, Amy. Montaigne talked about wanting to "track the flutterings" of his mind. You are doing that and inspiring me to do the same. Now I'm off to order the children's book. Thank you.
Thank you, Karen. I appreciate your comment. Timing! I love that you have and regularly use a Thesaurus. It seems I was wrong to think that it’s a dated idea in book form. That’s pretty wonderful. I appreciate your words about being immersed, too.
I enjoyed reading your post, Amy! I always enjoyed Roget's Thesaurus since I discovered it when writing poetry in high school. I love the illustrations you included and the words and thoughts referenced echo many of your lovely ways of encouraging us to engage and note creatively with our own worlds and things in our individual weeks and ways. Thank you.❤️✨️
I loved your glorious post about words. I have always been a word nerd and spent hours as a kid reading through my thesaurus and dictionary. It makes me sad that the thesaurus has moved online. A google search is laser focused and lacks the tactile search, the opportunity to discover new words, and the opportunity to go off on tangents.
It was delightful to read the meanderings of your mind. I have started opening my library catalog before reading your posts, so I can easily search the books you mention. I put a few fab books on hold and maybe Augie will humor me with a read aloud.
Based on your mention last week, I am watching Younger, which I am finding both swell and uncomfortable.
I am glad your library had some of these. They are a lot of fun — and interesting people to read about, too. Maybe Augie will enjoy them. I am laughing about having the library site open when reading. That seems perfect! I’m glad we talked about Younger today. It might just end up a pass for you, but I did really enjoy it.
Thank you for supplying a word :) and for reading. I hope you enjoy whichever titles you were able to find. I think you will like elements of her illustration style, for sure. I haven’t seen “Severance,” but I just looked up the plot summary…. That sounds pretty interesting. I always think of “Succession” when I hear people mention “Severance.” Not even in the same ballpark plot-wise!
I really loved reading this post ❤️ It made me remember a notebook I used to keep in high school where I wrote down words that were new to me. I wonder what happened to it 🤪
Right now I'm watching Silo -i read all 3 books and I really enjoyed them
I’m glad that this made you think of that notebook — I love that! I saw the first season of Silo, but I don’t have access now. I hadn’t read the books though either. Do you think the TV adaptation works well?
I just put The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus on hold at my library. I LOVE Thesaurus-es (Thesauri?) and used mine daily when I wrote for a small Massachusetts town's weekly newspaper. I'm looking forward to reading it and sharing it with my husband, who loves indexes and has an ongoing "My Dictionary" project of his own. The book sounds right up our alley. I like your suggestion to read aloud. As I age, I find it difficult to find a particular word lost in my cobwebbed brain, and I think reading aloud might be useful in maintaining and nurturing my adult vocabulary. We'll see!
I hope you and your husband enjoy it, Mary. It’s a sweet biography. How wonderful that your husband has a dictionary project. That’s very cool. I hear you about the words that disappear only to later seem like words you could never forget. I think there’s a lot to enjoy in reading out loud. Have fun!
I picked it up from the library this afternoon and read it while waiting for supper to be ready. I love the story and the illustrations. What a neat kid and adult he was! Thanks so much for the recommendation!
I'm sorry to say that I parted company with the thesaurus of my youth. It was falling apart and gathering dust, but not because I don't use one. I switched over to an online version some years ago and found the hard copy wasn't getting much action. But what a word fan I am! When I come across a sentence or passage that I think is beautifully crafted, I often read it out loud, and you're right: The spoken word is different from the written. Didn't the Greeks believe that books were intended to be read aloud? As someone who spent years in theater-adjacent pursuits, I am very drawn to reading aloud, and being read to. Recently, I spent a night with a colleague before we left town early the next morning. She and her husband still read to their daughters, 12 and 14. We may be few and far between, but we're still out here!
I'm delighted by the awareness of how much joy you found in The Right Word, Amy. It sure seems to have all the right elements for you! Have I asked you in the past if you've read The Dictionary of Lost Words, a read I truly enjoyed?
I am surprised by the responses and allegiance to Thesauruses in the comments! Very interesting indeed. I am glad to know there are other read-out-loud people out there. Reading aloud to children is definitely a special part of parenting or spending time with kids. I have not read The Dictionary of Lost Words. I just looked it up and made a note. When I first saw your comment, I was thinking of the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which I’ve looked at online before (although I don’t think it’s accessible in the way it was years ago). But since I thought about it (and vaguely recall mention of it as a book), I just checked, and that’s in at the library, too. Woohoo.
I keep coming across mentions for Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, too. It's on the list for me, but, it's going to be a while. Glad you found both options!
Some weeks, I find that I use a thesaurus almost daily. My go to is an online one, but I did buy a Roget’s a year or two back. My husband asked why since the online one is free. I don’t know, sometimes it’s more satisfying to thumb through an actual book.
Of course, I immediately put that book on hold at the library. The pages you previewed look absolutely enchanting.
I’ll use my favorite word for wonderful - fantabulous.
You, too! I love hearing that so many of you still use a thesaurus — even online. But that you also bought a hard copy! I’m glad your library had the book (you would probably enjoy any of hers). It’s a different kind of whimsy than your art, but I think you’ll enjoy it!
I do have my high school thesaurus and dictionary on top of my bookshelf but I can’t say I pull them down anymore. I use the Merriam-Webster app (and just now discovered it has a thesaurus option on the word!) or a quick google.
I agree about listening to words and reading out loud. I lost a lot of my concentration for reading during the first pandemic year and have really embraced audiobooks. An unintended consequence is that I write down less quotes and notes from what I read. And my whole life when I’ve come across a particularly hard passage I’m reading - for whatever reason it’s “hard” - I read it out loud.
And I too love to check our children’s books from the library! I also stock a lot in my little free library and enjoy reading them before they go out! Glad I’m not the only adult who enjoys them.
Oh, you have a little free library. I love that - and what fun it must be to add children’s books and know they’ve gone on to enrich a young reader’s life. The ease of just googling a word for a definition (or a synonym) is right up there with the benefit of the maps app, for me. I google definitions all the time. I really don’t look up synonyms, but in testing things for this piece, I checked several online sources (including the dictionaries) to see how they handled synonyms. Very interesting. That I got curated and different results in different places was also intriguing! Have a good week.
Back in the '70's I purchased a two-book set at Barnes and Noble: J.I. Rodale's Synonym Finder and Word Finder. I never used the Word Finder very much (would rather make up my own word combos), but I used the Synonym Finder constantly as a poet and found it to be much easier and more complete than Roget's Thesaurus. I still have the Synonym Finder, and even though I do use an online thesaurus, sometimes only the SF will do.
Love your comments about reading aloud. Yes, it does give a different flavor. As for poetry, I must say, though, that while there have been and are many excellent "page" poets, very few are skilled at performing their work (i.e. reading aloud), and some can make a page poem sound way better than it is. I sometimes cringe listening to either of them, lol!
Watching "White Collar" on Netflix. The lead is eye candy, but his developing relationship with the FBI agent who caught him is engaging, and the many tricks he and his shady sidekick come up with to foil the bad guys are sick (I guess that's another way of saying "wonderful" in this day and age, ha!).
I just put The Right Word on hold at my library. 📚 looking forward to it! I had a thesaurus in college. I haven’t often had a need for a thesaurus in my life lately, but have very fond memories of reading through my children’s dictionaries that my grandmother gave me. One set was a Peanuts A-Z set of 8 or so books; another was a Dr Seuss book with fun illustrations; and a longer dictionary for a little bit older kids had the funkiest 70s rainbow scene! I loved all 3.
I just watched two new shows tonight—
The Pitt (a hospital drama, maybe not your thing, but I loved watching ER back in the day and Noah Wylie stars and is a producer for this one and I loved it.) on Max
And
Watson on CBS/Paramount also in a hospital, but a take on a Sherlock Holmes adjacent story. And both stories take place in Pittsburgh! What a coincidence! In Watson, one character rode a funicular, and now I want to visit. I had the best time riding one in Dubuque, Iowa!
I love this! I love books about words. Love dictionaries, thesauri(?), and there's another goody that was recommended by Abigail Thomas, The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. LOVE that one.
I bought a little yellow thesaurus at a garage sale for 50 cents. I just looked at it a few days ago. But, frankly, right clicking on a word and hitting look up and then looking at the synonym list in the online dictionary is really easy.
You asked, "when was the last time you used a thesaurus?"
Two minutes before reading your post. Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus in Dictionary form, edited by Barbara Ann Kipper, head lexicographer of the Princeton Language Institute.
It's a wonderful thesaurus that also gives a concepts index at the back. I used it this morning to look up "immerse" and "immersed", a favourite way of being, because I want to freewrite and dig more deeply into the idea.
I love your meandering posts, Amy. Montaigne talked about wanting to "track the flutterings" of his mind. You are doing that and inspiring me to do the same. Now I'm off to order the children's book. Thank you.
Thank you, Karen. I appreciate your comment. Timing! I love that you have and regularly use a Thesaurus. It seems I was wrong to think that it’s a dated idea in book form. That’s pretty wonderful. I appreciate your words about being immersed, too.
Another picture book I love about words is The Lost Words
I haven’t looked at that one, Sara. Thank you for mentioning it. I just put it on hold.
Another MacFarlane fan! Yay!
I enjoyed reading your post, Amy! I always enjoyed Roget's Thesaurus since I discovered it when writing poetry in high school. I love the illustrations you included and the words and thoughts referenced echo many of your lovely ways of encouraging us to engage and note creatively with our own worlds and things in our individual weeks and ways. Thank you.❤️✨️
Thanks so much, Alayne. I am glad to hear you have fond memories of a Thesaurus!
I loved your glorious post about words. I have always been a word nerd and spent hours as a kid reading through my thesaurus and dictionary. It makes me sad that the thesaurus has moved online. A google search is laser focused and lacks the tactile search, the opportunity to discover new words, and the opportunity to go off on tangents.
It was delightful to read the meanderings of your mind. I have started opening my library catalog before reading your posts, so I can easily search the books you mention. I put a few fab books on hold and maybe Augie will humor me with a read aloud.
Based on your mention last week, I am watching Younger, which I am finding both swell and uncomfortable.
I am glad your library had some of these. They are a lot of fun — and interesting people to read about, too. Maybe Augie will enjoy them. I am laughing about having the library site open when reading. That seems perfect! I’m glad we talked about Younger today. It might just end up a pass for you, but I did really enjoy it.
Stupendous! I absolutely love this post! And as others have already mentioned, I’ve ordered/put on hold several of the titles you name here.
I am watching “severance”…the first season right now. It’s compelling & dark & I can’t stop thinking about it when I’m not watching it.
Thank you for supplying a word :) and for reading. I hope you enjoy whichever titles you were able to find. I think you will like elements of her illustration style, for sure. I haven’t seen “Severance,” but I just looked up the plot summary…. That sounds pretty interesting. I always think of “Succession” when I hear people mention “Severance.” Not even in the same ballpark plot-wise!
I really loved reading this post ❤️ It made me remember a notebook I used to keep in high school where I wrote down words that were new to me. I wonder what happened to it 🤪
Right now I'm watching Silo -i read all 3 books and I really enjoyed them
I’m glad that this made you think of that notebook — I love that! I saw the first season of Silo, but I don’t have access now. I hadn’t read the books though either. Do you think the TV adaptation works well?
I just put The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus on hold at my library. I LOVE Thesaurus-es (Thesauri?) and used mine daily when I wrote for a small Massachusetts town's weekly newspaper. I'm looking forward to reading it and sharing it with my husband, who loves indexes and has an ongoing "My Dictionary" project of his own. The book sounds right up our alley. I like your suggestion to read aloud. As I age, I find it difficult to find a particular word lost in my cobwebbed brain, and I think reading aloud might be useful in maintaining and nurturing my adult vocabulary. We'll see!
I hope you and your husband enjoy it, Mary. It’s a sweet biography. How wonderful that your husband has a dictionary project. That’s very cool. I hear you about the words that disappear only to later seem like words you could never forget. I think there’s a lot to enjoy in reading out loud. Have fun!
I picked it up from the library this afternoon and read it while waiting for supper to be ready. I love the story and the illustrations. What a neat kid and adult he was! Thanks so much for the recommendation!
I'm sorry to say that I parted company with the thesaurus of my youth. It was falling apart and gathering dust, but not because I don't use one. I switched over to an online version some years ago and found the hard copy wasn't getting much action. But what a word fan I am! When I come across a sentence or passage that I think is beautifully crafted, I often read it out loud, and you're right: The spoken word is different from the written. Didn't the Greeks believe that books were intended to be read aloud? As someone who spent years in theater-adjacent pursuits, I am very drawn to reading aloud, and being read to. Recently, I spent a night with a colleague before we left town early the next morning. She and her husband still read to their daughters, 12 and 14. We may be few and far between, but we're still out here!
I'm delighted by the awareness of how much joy you found in The Right Word, Amy. It sure seems to have all the right elements for you! Have I asked you in the past if you've read The Dictionary of Lost Words, a read I truly enjoyed?
I am surprised by the responses and allegiance to Thesauruses in the comments! Very interesting indeed. I am glad to know there are other read-out-loud people out there. Reading aloud to children is definitely a special part of parenting or spending time with kids. I have not read The Dictionary of Lost Words. I just looked it up and made a note. When I first saw your comment, I was thinking of the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which I’ve looked at online before (although I don’t think it’s accessible in the way it was years ago). But since I thought about it (and vaguely recall mention of it as a book), I just checked, and that’s in at the library, too. Woohoo.
I keep coming across mentions for Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, too. It's on the list for me, but, it's going to be a while. Glad you found both options!
Some weeks, I find that I use a thesaurus almost daily. My go to is an online one, but I did buy a Roget’s a year or two back. My husband asked why since the online one is free. I don’t know, sometimes it’s more satisfying to thumb through an actual book.
Of course, I immediately put that book on hold at the library. The pages you previewed look absolutely enchanting.
I’ll use my favorite word for wonderful - fantabulous.
Have a fantabulous week. 😊
You, too! I love hearing that so many of you still use a thesaurus — even online. But that you also bought a hard copy! I’m glad your library had the book (you would probably enjoy any of hers). It’s a different kind of whimsy than your art, but I think you’ll enjoy it!
Thank you for sharing the word fantabulous.
Sublime
I do have my high school thesaurus and dictionary on top of my bookshelf but I can’t say I pull them down anymore. I use the Merriam-Webster app (and just now discovered it has a thesaurus option on the word!) or a quick google.
I agree about listening to words and reading out loud. I lost a lot of my concentration for reading during the first pandemic year and have really embraced audiobooks. An unintended consequence is that I write down less quotes and notes from what I read. And my whole life when I’ve come across a particularly hard passage I’m reading - for whatever reason it’s “hard” - I read it out loud.
And I too love to check our children’s books from the library! I also stock a lot in my little free library and enjoy reading them before they go out! Glad I’m not the only adult who enjoys them.
Oh, you have a little free library. I love that - and what fun it must be to add children’s books and know they’ve gone on to enrich a young reader’s life. The ease of just googling a word for a definition (or a synonym) is right up there with the benefit of the maps app, for me. I google definitions all the time. I really don’t look up synonyms, but in testing things for this piece, I checked several online sources (including the dictionaries) to see how they handled synonyms. Very interesting. That I got curated and different results in different places was also intriguing! Have a good week.
Back in the '70's I purchased a two-book set at Barnes and Noble: J.I. Rodale's Synonym Finder and Word Finder. I never used the Word Finder very much (would rather make up my own word combos), but I used the Synonym Finder constantly as a poet and found it to be much easier and more complete than Roget's Thesaurus. I still have the Synonym Finder, and even though I do use an online thesaurus, sometimes only the SF will do.
Love your comments about reading aloud. Yes, it does give a different flavor. As for poetry, I must say, though, that while there have been and are many excellent "page" poets, very few are skilled at performing their work (i.e. reading aloud), and some can make a page poem sound way better than it is. I sometimes cringe listening to either of them, lol!
Watching "White Collar" on Netflix. The lead is eye candy, but his developing relationship with the FBI agent who caught him is engaging, and the many tricks he and his shady sidekick come up with to foil the bad guys are sick (I guess that's another way of saying "wonderful" in this day and age, ha!).
“Sick.” Lol. Perfect. I hadn’t heard of The Synonym Finder (and its companion). Interesting! Thank you for reading.
I just put The Right Word on hold at my library. 📚 looking forward to it! I had a thesaurus in college. I haven’t often had a need for a thesaurus in my life lately, but have very fond memories of reading through my children’s dictionaries that my grandmother gave me. One set was a Peanuts A-Z set of 8 or so books; another was a Dr Seuss book with fun illustrations; and a longer dictionary for a little bit older kids had the funkiest 70s rainbow scene! I loved all 3.
I just watched two new shows tonight—
The Pitt (a hospital drama, maybe not your thing, but I loved watching ER back in the day and Noah Wylie stars and is a producer for this one and I loved it.) on Max
And
Watson on CBS/Paramount also in a hospital, but a take on a Sherlock Holmes adjacent story. And both stories take place in Pittsburgh! What a coincidence! In Watson, one character rode a funicular, and now I want to visit. I had the best time riding one in Dubuque, Iowa!
I hope you have a great week. ❤️
I bet your students might enjoy The Right Word? Those dictionary sets you remember from your childhood sound wonderful.
Coincidentally, I just watched The Pitt tonight. I haven’t heard of Watson. I’ll have to check it out! Thanks for commenting.
I love this! I love books about words. Love dictionaries, thesauri(?), and there's another goody that was recommended by Abigail Thomas, The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. LOVE that one.
Thanks, Nan. I've never looked at that book before. Thanks for the tip!
I bought a little yellow thesaurus at a garage sale for 50 cents. I just looked at it a few days ago. But, frankly, right clicking on a word and hitting look up and then looking at the synonym list in the online dictionary is really easy.