Re: Subject: Thesaurus won't work

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "Patricia M. Godfrey"  on Sun, 04
Dec 2005 13:20:23 -0500


> If you find
> thesauri useful, by all means use them. I don't, and I have had good
> reason, over my editing career, to deplore their misuse.

Just out of curiosity, what sort of misuse? How can they be misused, except by
people who don't know what the words mean or their nuance? Except, in short,
by idiots? We all deplore idiots, but we don't bother to read or edit their
works either. Even supposing that you are compelled by profession to deal with
them, I don't see the relevance to us. Thesauri are simply a sensible
memory-jogging device -- very direct-to-the-point -- and identical in function
to the dictionary of quotations you say you would use instead (the different
result is... what? the divertissement of snippets of literature?). Much more
expedient than, say, asking "Who has written on this subject? Do I have
anything of his or hers to hand?" and looking there -- come on. We have work
to do.

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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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