A library of words: Discovering Roget's Thesaurus (2023)

Hey y’all, It felt like I spent the weekend in another century: Riding my bicycle, chopping wood, and obsessively reading Roget’s Thesaurus. Let me explain that last item. I have always assumed — and maybe you have, too — that a thesaurus is just a synonym dictionary, the words arranged alphabetically with a list of synonyms and antonyms below. Somehow, every thesaurus I’d ever come across — even ones with “Roget” in the title! — had this alphabetic arrangement. Because of this, it was easy for me to effectively ignore the thesaurus. If I needed a synonym or antonym, I’d just open an actual dictionary, or do a quick online search. This inclination was cemented as a habitual way of operating when I read John McPhee’s advice to skip the thesaurus and look up words you already know in the dictionary. But on Friday, I was on the phone with a reporter, talking about ambition. You know how if you stare at a word long enough it starts looking like it’s spelled wrong? A-m-b-i-t-i-o-n. In t ... Read full article.