Fulford on Roget's Thesaurus

Fulford holds forth, elucidates, and expounds on the glory of Roget's Thesaurus.

Robert Fulford is most exacerbated by the nattering nabobs, who are attacking the Thesaurus. One claims it gives dumbo college students the sense of being learned. Well, being articulate is a step away from their former boobism. Maybe they would stop overusing imprecise words and phrases, e.g. "Like, up know", "stuff", and other words that shine a spotlight on their ignorance of a given topic. Roget's critics think that people should search their minds for the correct words. What elitist bull. Not much point going to a word bank that has been robbed by verbal laziness. And where, pray tell, did these scholars pick up their convoluted verbosity? As Fulford points out, such carping about a man who created a masterpeice of vocabulary (as well as inventing the slide rule) is "bald-faced bunkum, babbling balderdash, and bullheaded baloney". A thesaurus can never fall into the wrong hands.

© Bud