John Lewis Roget

Had this Book Club Associates' edition forwarded to me soon after its publication in 1973 when I was living in Scandinavia, short on Markka & pretending to be a budding author. It was an invaluable tool - to find that ultimate keyword your mind has let slip - and has continued to be every year since then although my oeuvre remains perilously slim!
A Thesaurus's role is to complement, not replace the inestimable Dictionary: as R.A. Dutch states in the preface (1962), "It furnishes no labels show more for 'speech level', for what is scholarly, literary or vulgar, or archaic and obsolete" (and certainly this Edition along with me is bordering on that last vestige of practical usefulness that was my ambition and is now for youthful aspiring writers). show less

Note in the back hand-written by my father:
This volume was won as a prize in a literary competition known as Bullets run by the magazine John Bull, a publication of Odhams Press (1933). The originalowner was Harold Jones of 34 York Street, South Bank, Yorks (1952). House and street demolished 1970.
Sellotaped to the frontispiece is a press-cutting from I don't know which newspaper, letters to the editor containing rhyming mnemonics for the English kings and queens.
I much prefer this tatty old show more thesaurus to more modern versions and use it when doing crosswords, as did my Dad before me (and perhaps Uncle Harold but he died when I was small). show less

I prefer the original organization to the dictionary style-leads me more to associated topics and ideas and how various words relate to one another

Sorry, I just don't get it, understand it, grasp it, make the connection, dig it, comprehend it.

The reason each word exists is that it is its own thing. By definition the thesaurus is telling you to do something wrong: to replace a word with something that isn't quite right.

I'm not going to say any more, but I DEMAND that you go here and watch/listen to The Thesaurus Song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHDn7_pmRug

It's brilliant, wonderful, fantastic, the best, fabulous....you get the idea.