Lingua Franca

Sprachgefühl?

Once the meaning core is in place, you begin the hunt. The first [Merriam-Webster] thesaurus was compiled, yes, by hand, with editors flipping through the Third and trying to keep track of all the possible synonyms for “love.” It was an overwhelming task, one sure to induce some strong hallucinations and psychotic breaks, and perhaps that explains why “chatty” was not listed as a synonym of “glib” in the first edition of the Collegiate Thesaurus but “well-hung” was. I had it easier, but even with a computer and a searchable dictionary database, finding and ordering synonyms and near synonyms was tricky. My nature was working against me: I am a splitter–a definer who likes detailing every possible denotative nook and connotative cranny of a word’s meaning–and so perhaps not the best person in the world to write a thesaurus. ‘Togs,’ I reasoned, means ‘clothing’, but it also refers to clothing worn for a specific purpose. Is that enough lexical synonymy to include ‘togs’ as a synonym? Or is it a near synonym? A vacuum whirred downstairs. It was 6:00pm, and I was going to be locked in the building overnight with nothing to eat and a bunch of boring, pedantic ghosts if I didn’t leave pronto. Synonym it is.

Kory Stamper @ harmless drudgery