Mar 19 2009
I Am A Thesaurus Junkie
I have something to admit to the world. I am a Thesaurus junkie. I’ve known this for some time now, but was never able to admit it openly. Thanks to my friend Nannette , I can now come clean. Nannette is also a self-proclaimed Thesaurus junkie, and I felt better getting it off my chest and out to the rest of the world. I’m also learning that there are several Thesaurus junkies out there, and I want to help save as many as I can, so here is my story.
My name is Christine and I am a Thesaurus junkie. I grabbed my first Thesaurus copy while still in high school. All the kids in English class were doing it, and I jumped in without a care in the world. After all, I was young and I’d had a taste of the writing drug. It didn’t take me long to become completely hooked.
By the time I had gotten out of high school, I carried a Thesaurus with me all the time. I always had a story in my head, and was always on the lookout for just the right words. Being the naive child that I was, I had no idea what I was doing by mixing story telling and thesaurus use at the same time. It took me a long time to see the downward spiral I was heading in.
One I got married and began having children, I knew I had to do something about my Thesaurus habit, but I just couldn’t stop. I was reading my thesaurus for several hours a day. When the kids were taking a nap, I’d sneak in a few pages. While I was making dinner, I’d scan a quick peak when nobody was looking. I even found myself staying up till all hours of the morning rummaging through my thesaurus for odd words I knew I’d never use in a story. I just needed my Thesaurus fix.
It wasn’t until about 2 years ago, that I realized that my Thesaurus habit had gotten out of hand. I began yelling at the people around me, as I was sure that one of them had stolen my Thesaurus and hidden it from me. I tore my house apart and eventually found it under my pillow, where I’d had it the night before. I had gotten so intoxicated on mixing and matching words that I had totally blacked out. That was when I knew it was time to seek help.
I have worked very hard these past few years to curb my thirst for words have similar meanings to the ones I have in my head. I can’t say that I’m 100% Thesaurus free, but I have forced myself to look inside myself for my word weaving fix. Today, I am down to only one page a day. With any luck, I’ll be able to kick my Thesaurus habit for good, or at least stop using it as a dictionary.
My name is Christine and I am a Thesaurus Addict.
You are correct so many words to muse over, enjoy.
Add you favourite to my page, if you have time to put the Thesaurus down!
http://dpsmusings.today.com/2009/03/17/words-out/
Roget is my thesaurus of choice. What’s yours? My problem is that my writing is mostly non-fiction and the words I want/need are never listed!
@ dpsmusings—I love words, I love to find new words, I love to hear new words, I love rhyming words, I just love words. It’s a disease. LOL
@aw—Mine is Roget’s Super Thesaurus 2nd Edition. Poor thing has seen better days, but it’s still holding together. I write mostly non-fic and use it a lot these days as dictionary/simile (in fact had to use it for that word) finder. It has a huge coffee stain on the bottom, the binding is torn, and there are hundreds of highlighted words throughout the whole thing. I’d be lost without it.