Dr. Peter Mark Roget, (1779–1869), earned his MD from the University of Edinburgh at the age of 19 in 1808. He went on to become a highly prestigious physician. However, he suffered from depression.
He found that list-making helped him to manage his mental health as well as assisting him in finding specific words. Beginning in 1805, he started arranging words by ideas and classifying them into 1,000 categories. rather then defaulting to the traditional style of alphabetical dictionaries.
After retiring from his career as a physician in the 1840's, Dr. Roget turned his list into a formal, publishable work. In 1852 he released it as The Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. Since it's first publication it has been continually in print.
Growing up in my Poetry bubble, from the age of 11, I always clutched my Roget's Thesaurus close and at the ready. I'd dig into it whenever I needed a synonym: an alternate word for the one I had though to use in a poem. Due to this habit, my vocabulary grew and grew.
Much later, from my author table at book conventions, I always advised young and upcoming poets to do likewise, and to read, read, read the best poetry they had access to ... essentially, to indulge in that published community, living or not. Sometimes that's the only opportunity we have of being in the company of other poets. I works for me!
Thanks to my lifelong reliance on Roget's Thesaurus, needful synonyms pop into my head with little heeding. I do still ocassionally refer to my Thesaurus these days, but mainly to verify that the word I've selected is the correct one or the best one, but far less than I did in the past.
This poet is ever so thankful for Dr. Peter Mark Roget's work.
He found that list-making helped him to manage his mental health as well as assisting him in finding specific words. Beginning in 1805, he started arranging words by ideas and classifying them into 1,000 categories. rather then defaulting to the traditional style of alphabetical dictionaries.
After retiring from his career as a physician in the 1840's, Dr. Roget turned his list into a formal, publishable work. In 1852 he released it as The Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. Since it's first publication it has been continually in print.
Growing up in my Poetry bubble, from the age of 11, I always clutched my Roget's Thesaurus close and at the ready. I'd dig into it whenever I needed a synonym: an alternate word for the one I had though to use in a poem. Due to this habit, my vocabulary grew and grew.
Much later, from my author table at book conventions, I always advised young and upcoming poets to do likewise, and to read, read, read the best poetry they had access to ... essentially, to indulge in that published community, living or not. Sometimes that's the only opportunity we have of being in the company of other poets. I works for me!
Thanks to my lifelong reliance on Roget's Thesaurus, needful synonyms pop into my head with little heeding. I do still ocassionally refer to my Thesaurus these days, but mainly to verify that the word I've selected is the correct one or the best one, but far less than I did in the past.
This poet is ever so thankful for Dr. Peter Mark Roget's work.
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