Homo-sapiens are eager to appear erudite among their peers. It is a superfluous, though, as many people do not speak as though they are living in the Eighteenth Century.
The thesaurus and I were best friends back in middle school. I used the thesaurus for every paper and essay I wrote. I thought that I would sound smarter if I used bigger or more obscure words in replacement of simple ones. I thought I beat the system…
But, it backfired. If you use a word you’re not familiar with, you won’t be sure how to use it properly in a sentence – which can actually make you sound less intelligent.
So instead of a sentence like, (1) “My dog Skip went to the park today.”
I would end up with a sentence like, (2) “My canine Skip decamp to the esplanade present.”
I just took a fancy sounding word from each thesaurus list and inserted it into the sentence. Because I didn’t really know what the words meant, and I didn’t know how to use them properly, the sentence just…
View original post 379 more words
I also fell in love with the thesaurus at a young age. My favorite now is “In Other Words.” It gives examples of usage and explains connotations of most words.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great! I like to introduce better, more descriptive words to my students, too. I just make sure the words they learn are relevant to their writing.
LikeLike