No, I Do Not Want a New Thesaurus! Will Stick with Falling-Apart Oldie, Thanks

 by Minnie Apolis
 
My thesaurus (BTW what’s another word for thesaurus?) is falling apart. So am I, but that’s another story. The cover of the Roget’s has been affixed to the rest of it with clear packing tape. The first three pages are not affixed to the rest of it by anything, which reminds me I should sit down with the scotch tape and do some more repairs. Pages 145 through 158 are also loose, so that I have to open it carefully or else I’ll have to pick up pages from the floor. The cover bears the original price: 60 cents. Washington Square Press edition from 1962, 6th printing, May 1962. 
 
Since I really do not think I bought it during my primary school years, I somehow clung to this keeper of a reference even though it has delivered its money’s worth many times over.

I have looked at new copies of a thesaurus from time to time, my head turned by a shiny cover and freshly trimmed edges. Ooh, the smell, tang, scent, odor, reek, pungency, whiff, aroma, bouquet, perfume of a new book’s glue can be addictive. If I were some faithless hussy (dame, broad, wench, baggage), I might let it show me a good time. But I do not judge (assess, appraise, rate) a book by its cover!

I page through new editions and just do not find them as helpful as the oldie I have. Flip open my 1961 version to a word, any word.

How about FIGHTING? There is about a whole column (a half page) of synonyms for the noun (strife, brawling, pugilism, fisticuffs, battle, conflict, clash, combat, skirmish, donnybrook), verb (battle, brawl, tussle, scuffle, box, spar, duel, fence, tilt, joust) and adjective (warlike, aggressive, belligerent, bellicose, martial, jingoistic, combative, pugnacious, scrappy). Then if that is not enough, it refers the gentle reader elsewhere for another word fix: “See also ARMS, ATTACK, CUTTING, DEFEAT, KILLING, OPPOSITION. Antonyms – See PEACE, SUBMISSION.”

Perhaps all this talk of war is offensive to the gentle reader’s sensibilities.
Perhaps it will soothe you to think about the gentle art of painting, or drawing, illustration, design, picture, piece, canvas – See FINE ARTS. OK, back to the F’s.

FINE ARTS: Here we have over a half page about the various fine arts or the aspects of art. Synonyms are grouped under Painting, Style, Picture, Portrait, View, Picture gallery, Sculpture, Statue, Dummy, Relief, Architecture, Paint, Pictorial, and Sculptured. “See also ARTIST, COLOR, ENGRAVING, ORNAMENT, PHOTOGRAPH, REPRESENTATION.”

Perhaps you prefer to just chat a bit. Or discuss, palaver, converse, dialogue, banter, speak, say, utter, pronounce, soliloquize, rhapsodize, drawl, cite, enumerate, chatter, babble, gabble, jaw, prate. But by all means do not equivocate! More synonyms take up three-quarters of a page. But wait! There’s more! “See also ABSURDITY, EXPRESSION, GREETING, HINT, INFORMATION, LANGUAGE, RUMOR, STATEMENT, TEASING, VOICE, WORD, WORDINESS. Antonyms – See SILENCE.”

You see? It helps you zero in on words that focus on different aspects of the idea of TALK. Is it the vocal expression, is it the use of language, is it communicating information -- or mere rumor, or are you searching for something about idioms? I don’t find this kind of helpfulness in the other paperback thesauruses (thesauri??) that I have perused, read, or pored over.

While it is great to have a large vocabulary, one must remember to keep the message uppermost in mind when crafting a speech or article like this one. Or, to cite the old injunction (advice, counsel, suggestion, recommendation, exhortation, admonition, directions, prescription) titled “Elegant English:”

“In promulgating your esoteric cogitations and in articulating your superficial, amiable and philosophical observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your extemporaneous decantations and unpremeditated expiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity, without rodomontade and thrasonical bombast. Avoid sedulously polysyllabic profundity, psittaceous vacuity and ventriloquial verbosity. In other words, talk plainly, simply, naturally. Say what you mean, mean what you say – BUT DON’T USE BIG WORDS!”

Or to put it another way, KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID!