The Thesaurus

The thesaurus is one of the most dangerous tools available to a writer. And when I say a writer, I mean any person who is writing any thing. It has a good intention, the thesaurus, but it is rarely used properly.

The English language is a dense forest of vocabulary. There are countless ways to say something or express an idea. The beauty of it is that we can pick whichever word sounds just the way we want. If you're very angry, you can accent that anger by saying that you're pissed. But you want to lead your anger into the situation itself, in which case you'll say that you're infuriated at the events that have transpired.

Sometimes, though, you just can't think of the right word. You know that it means that they're really good at not wasting money, and you sort of know what it sounds like, but the word itself just isn't coming. So you pick up your thesaurus, and you look up 'cheap', which you know is the wrong word, but the right idea. You see the word 'chintzy' and it sounds kinda like what you were looking for. You figure it's good enough and then you finish writing the article for the company newsletter talking about your boss.

Uh oh, now you not only called your boss cheap, but you actually called him cheap, gaudy, and kinda dirty, all in the most colloquial way possible. Now you turned a kind sentiment into a horrible faux pas.

I rarely use a thesaurus, but I will use one on occasion. When I do, I am shocked to see the so-called synonyms. I looked up the word 'correct' and found results such as 'equitable', 'rigorous', 'stone', and 'nice'. None of these words comes even close to meaning what correct means. If you ever tried to pick a word out of a thesaurus to sound smarter or because you think it's right, you have a pretty good chance of making yourself look like an idiot without even knowing it.

The problem with synonyms is that we don't really have any in English. We have words that mean similar things, but very few that mean the exact same thing. Every time we have multiple words with the same meaning, we find ways to distinguish the words by giving them subtle differences.

In my experience, a thesaurus is a very limited tool. The only thing it can do is remind you of a word that you already know, but forgot or can't think of. Even still, you have to be lucky enough for the thesaurus to have the word you want in the first place.

If you can't think of a word that describes an idea you have, save yourself a lot of time and trouble by saying the idea. If, in the hypothetical situation above, you had simply said that your boss "never wasted money and found the best deals on everything," you would have saved yourself untold amounts of stress and grief. If you drop the thesaurus and just say what you're trying to say, you can save yourself lots of real life stress and grief, too.