Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Welcome to a New Thesaurus



Words have a past. Now the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, a behemoth costing over $300.00, touts itself as a treasure chest of words, synonyms and the historical progression of words. Yet who can keep up?

Perhaps they'll establish an Internet site to add new words as we coin them. They stopped collecting words in 2003. That means that for six years, and counting, words entered our lexicons unaccounted for in the Oxford complete—yet now incomplete reference book.

Tweeter, tweet. Does modern usage propel them into a dictionary or thesaurus?

Words change. Pronunciations change. A word's grammar changes. Even the meaning of a word may change. A word takes on metaphorical connotations. Bland words, in a different period of time, morph into pejorative words or foul words.

Writers play with words, discarding and replacing, honing and plumping up. Some scrape every adjective out of their prose; some eschew words of too many syllables.

When I entered the sixth grade I discovered my father's Roget Thesaurus and began a love affair with the variety and flavor of words. Instead of writing: The new student walked into the room I discovered a column full of possibilities in Rogets. Now the new student sauntered, loped, rambled, strolled, —even schlepped into the room.

My teacher, Miss (not Ms) Kosel, had assigned one of her weekly writing assignments— I don't recall the topic, but I do remember writing a first draft and then selecting about twenty words for a Thesaurus revision. My definition of revision consisted of finding longer, more complicated sounding words. I replaced my sixth grade vocabulary with new words, some arcane, a few unpronounceable.

Miss Kosel wrote me a note: Linda, put away the Roget. She underlined the twenty words I so laboriously upgraded and wrote: Please replace these with the original words and hand it again.

I still love my thesaurus, but try and exercise restraint.

Words have a past.

We tend to use many of the same words over and over as if the others are unable to carry the weight of what we mean. Is it a word rut or laziness or an emotional tether? I'm not referring to the small words or the filler words like irrespective or phrases like— the way I see it. I knew someone who kept referring to things in the world as being too congruent for her manic personality. She applied that word, like a sticky note, to the aisles of the grocery store, to library shelves, to the people she saw at a mall.

"What does it mean? I asked.
"You know, " she said, "they are all alike. Cookie cutter."

Words--"so many and not enough time."

Welcome to the World’s First Historical Thesaurus—but I'll still hang on to my Rogets. We've grown accustomed to our combined quirks.

That doesn't mean that I'm not anxiously looking forward to thumbing through the Oxford's entries. The question remains—will my local library purchase the thesaurus?

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