READING UPDATE: The Thesaurus- Part 1- Introduction – Crawly

There was a point in late July where I thought hitting the 25% mark was possible. I came close but life intervened. This wasn’t as demoralizing as constantly missing my reading goals with the dictionary, because after just a few pages into the thesaurus, I realized how little I was going to take away from it.

Given that I view the thesaurus as a tool rife for misuse, I was not surprised to find only the scantest of cautions against inappropriate use of the words found herein. In the opening introduction, my thesaurus boasts that it will help the reader “find the right words to express your thoughts precisely and add color and variety to your language.” Toward the end of the introduction section, it cautions that “even though two words may be synonymous, they may not be equally appropriate in all contexts.” Rather than encouraging readers to double-check the exact definitions of fancier words plucked from the thesaurus before using them, it just rambles on about certain fields that words might be limited to.

Reading the ‘synonym’ content of the thesaurus is a breeze. My approach to the thesaurus makes this even easier. Unlike the dictionary, I’m not trying to discover or retain much of anything with this book. My goal is to push through it and move on to books with substance. I’ve got a respectable vocabulary but if I didn’t absorb new words from the dictionary, I won’t add to my lexicon from the thesaurus.

I found one or two words with ‘synonyms’ that were highfalutin and seemed completely unnecessary outside of trying to make yourself sound smart. I don’t remember what those words were, but I will keep an eye out for them from now on. Other than that, I don’t have any interesting thesaurus entries to report on because it offers no interesting details about the words like the dictionary did.


Page Count: 118/528 (22.35%)
Countdown to the Letter D: 5.5 pages