News & Views Book Review
| Roget's International Thesaurus News & Views Book Review |
By Al Brown Al Brown is a Senior Editor at Oki Data, a Senior Member of STC, and a Junior Member of AARP.
Originally published in News & Views January 2000 issue.
Copyright 2000 STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter. For permission to reprint
this article, contact the Managing Editor.
|
Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869) was typical of his time. Trained as a physician, he did not limit himself to the practice of medicine; he also lectured and wrote on scientific subjects. He became Fellow of the Royal Society, and served as its secretary for many years. Roget, however, was no elitist; he founded the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge to spread learning as widely as possible. In creating his thesaurus, Roget's purpose was to turn the dictionary upside down. Given a word, a dictionary provides its meaning. Roget had something else in mind. "The object aimed at in the present undertaking is exactly the converse of this: namely, the idea being given, to find the word, or words, by which that idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed." That, of course, is the goal of every serious writer, whether technical communicator or poet. The core of his thesaurus is nothing less than a taxonomy of ideas, a method of categorizing concepts analogous to the phylogenetic hierarchy used in biology. He established six primary classes, ranging from Abstract Relations to Sentiment and Moral Powers, with each class further subdivided. At the final level are lists of related words. In the back of the book, the Index Guide gives a quick way of getting to a list related to the idea you want to find a word for. Then it's up to you to decide which word is the best fit. The search for the perfect word can move back and forth among index, categories, and cross-references, approaching a hard-copy counterpart of being lost in hyperspace. I went off to college with a 1960 printing of the 1946 edition, and this is the one I still use. The red buckram binding and the preponderance of slightly old-fashioned vocabulary make this edition an old friend that I feel no need to upgrade, the way I do word processors or browsers. But I'm starting to feel old. While researching this review, I discovered that HarperCollins bought the rights to Roget in 1977, and in 1992 completely reworked it. The editor of the fifth edition, Robert L. Chapman, complains that the original scheme was too "Platonic" and "Aristotelian," by which he means too abstract for modern sensibilities. The new thesaurus has fifteen classes loosely based on the development of the individual from infant to adult, thence to a member of society. The groupings are more associative than logical. To get an idea of the difference in approach, I looked up "Homeric." In my old faithful edition, I found "Homeric epic" listed under "Description" with adjectives such as "depictive" and "traditionary." It belongs in Class Four, Intellect, Division (II), Communication of Ideas, Section III, Means of Communicating Ideas, 2. Conventional Means of Communicating Ideas, iii, Written Language. The fifth edition pointed me to "Poetry," under Class Eleven, Arts. There's also a listing under "Size, Largeness," (Class Four, Measure and Shape) where it cohabits with the likes of "humongous" and "mega." These aren't words I need a reference book for-my kids do the job quite well-but it is interesting that the word has taken on a different metaphorical meaning in the new edition. The categories have not only been revised, but also flattened to only two levels, as opposed to Roget's more hierarchical approach. I hate to admit it, but the current edition works at least as well as the version I'm used to. It contains subject areas that are more up to date and includes some new features, such as lists-clothing, for example-which fill in gaps intentionally left by Roget. Its main virtue is that it stays true to Roget's original concept; it is, as far as I can tell, the only thesaurus that is not simply an alphabetical dictionary of synonyms. This is what makes it not only useful, but also challenging and fun. 5th Edition, HarperCollins; paperback: ISBN 0062720376; |
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Last updated: April 25, 2000 (mvh)