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Yes, I Am in a Relationship With the Thesaurus
Do people expect that if you’re a writer you have a dictionary embedded in your brain?
Some years ago, in a context I no longer remember, I mentioned looking something up in a thesaurus.
“YOU DID WHAT???” “YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL WRITER AND YOU USE A THESAURUS???!!” “OF ALL PEOPLE, YOU??” These were some of the reasonable, equitable, gently-put responses to my confession, drawing what seemed to be a direct equivalency between using a thesaurus and committing murder. I was, to put it mildly, surprised. I am someone who strings words together for a living, and sometimes I feel that the word I’ve conjured is inadequate to its task. I want to find another word that’s better/more interesting/differently nuanced/fresher.
To accomplish that, I use the murder weapon — oops, I mean, the thesaurus. It has lots of words in it. I treat browsing in it like a shopping expedition, picking up the different offerings and checking their weight and ripeness, and when I find just the right one, I grab it. Isn’t that what writing is about?
I don’t mean to act like a dummy; I know why people react this way. All of us at some point in high school found ourselves writing a paper and wanting to get a better grade, so we started mining the thesaurus for…
