The Thesaurus is Your Enemy

I know we all do it. Heed to the call of the ethereal thesaurus, the companion to writers everywhere. But I warn you of the consequences. Stephen King wrote: "If you have to hunt for a word in a thesaurus, it's probably the wrong word." At first, I was appalled. I used the thesaurus all the time! We're great friends. So, I asked a teacher of mine what he meant. She said," Think of it. If you're an author, you should know a lot of words already. If you go looking for a word to replace another, you'll probably end up using it wrong and look like an idiot."

Then I realized I probably used a lot of words wrong when writing. Whenever I feel like I'm being redundant, I search for a word in the thesaurus and use one I don't even know the meaning of. Now, I'm not saying using thesauri is bad. You can use it to help remember a word you forgot, or maybe you can use a word you already know. Just DON'T learn new words from the thesaurus.

It is your enemy. Shun thy enemy.