What's Another Word for ...
Your book is subtitled Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus. Sounds like a compelling story, but not a particularly happy one.
Simon Winchester [The Professor and the Madman, about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary] kick-started this genre - the back story of famous reference books - and I thought Peter Mark Roget would be interesting. The thesaurus is essentially like a phone book. It's a list, but there's a human being behind it. This is the story of a human being and his struggle with loss, pain, personal tragedy, and . . .
Mental illness.
Yes. Roget suffered from obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, but he found a way to channel it. We live in an age when people want to get rid of their mental illness, but it's what made Roget creative.
It might surprise people that Roget was a ladies' man despite being so bookish and fussy.
There are funny stories about Jane Franklin, who later married Arctic explorer John Franklin. She had the hots for Roget. Eventually, she was turned off by Roget because she felt he was cold and cunning. It was kind of a Jane Austen thing.
I use a thesaurus, but I'm kind of embarrassed I need it. Shouldn't I know that "indolent" is another way of saying "sluggish"?
A few years ago, Winchester attacked the thesaurus, saying it's kind of a crutch. What I learned is that it's an interactive tool. It gives you options. It doesn't mean you should stop thinking.
Sylvia Plath was so fond of the thesaurus that she called herself "Roget's strumpet."
She sexualized all of her relationships. Sylvia Plath used the thesaurus responsibly and chose her language carefully. Dylan Thomas, on the other hand, relied on it and it shows.
Did you use a thesaurus for this book?
I did. I'd never used a thesaurus as a writer.
Can you think of a word you looked up?
Nothing comes to mind off the top of my head.
What would Roget think of the way we speak and write today?
He had a little bit of Henry Higgins in him. Take the word "change." Roget has about a dozen different types of "change" - sudden, gradual, violent. He felt words were very serious business. To Barack Obama he might say, "What kind of change?"
As the thesaurus is updated, I'm guessing words are added and subtracted.
The current editor, George Davidson, likes to say he's the guy who added "masturbation." Then he had a problem: He had to categorize it. He also added sexual addiction, cybersex, and Viagra. That gives you some idea of the changes.
What's your next book?
United by Words: Noah Webster, Obsession, and the Creation of America's First Dictionary. Webster also had obsessive-compulsive disorder.
You might have a touch of OCD yourself.
Yes. Maybe I'll write a book called The Man Who Wrote Books About Men Who Were Obsessed.
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