January 18 Is National Thesaurus Day: Top Three Ways to Use Your Thesaurus

Get To the Point recommends three ways to honor Peter Mark Roget, not just on his birthday but every day you write.
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Why do we celebrate National Thesaurus Day on January 18?

Everybody reading this post has no doubt heard of Roget’s Thesaurus.

Peter Mark Roget was an English physician. He was born on January 18, 1779. You’ll need a big cake for the 246 candles you’ll need to celebrate his birthday. After 47 years spent compiling data classifying words according to their meaning, in 1852, Roget published the “Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition.”

Get To the Point recommends three ways to honor Peter Mark Roget, not just on his birthday, National Thesaurus Day, but every day you write.

Use MS Word’s Thesaurus Tool

If you want to change up your vocabulary when you find yourself repeatedly using the same word, highlight that word and right-click. Word will offer some synonyms.

Don’t like any of those? Click on Thesaurus at the bottom of the list to see a lot more choices. Even then, your options are pretty limited.

This basic technique works for single words — for phrases, not so much.

Go to a Thesaurus Website

Maybe you already regularly use Dictionary.com to find definitions. A different tab in the same app brings up www.thesaurus.com. Or just keystroke the website name to go there directly. You can request synonyms for a single word or a phrase. The search result will offer several options to choose from or for further exploration.

Alternatively, go to www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus to use that dictionary publisher’s thesaurus website. (They also have great games on the site.) Like Thesaurus.com, you can search for a phrase as well as a single word and choose from several categories of output.

The Merriam-Webster site has a neat feature where you can type in a sentence and get a custom synonym suggestion. Looking for a synonym for “animal” in a specific context, I input “Horace’s contribution to the marketing discussion was a different animal altogether.” Merriam-Webster suggested: “Horace’s contribution to the marketing discussion was a different matter altogether.” The closest suggestion from Thesaurus.com that could be used in this context was “thing,” but that was just one of a list of synonyms.

Break Out the Actual Book

Of course, you should have a thesaurus on your bookshelf along with a physical dictionary and style guide. A real thesaurus will offer way more possibilities, including synonyms for phrasal terms. Besides plain old “get,” my physical thesaurus offered 33 other versions, including get across, get ahead, get along, get around, get at, get away with, get on and get over. (While there are several versions of Roget’s, the latest version is the Roget’s International Thesaurus, 8th Edition.)

All-Purpose Advice

With any of these suggestions, your hunt for the perfect word is not limited to a single search. When you find a word that is close to what you want, click on it or turn to the page to see more possibilities. Don’t get too carried away, of course, you want to come across as erudite, not clueless.

For more tips on making the most of your thesaurus, read “A Thesaurus Is More Than a Word Processing Feature” and “You Want to Come Across as Erudite, Not Clueless.”

Dad Joke in Honor of Peter Mark Roget

Which prehistoric animal knew the most words?

The thesaurus, of course.

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