Word: roget
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...This is at least a curious book," exclaimed the London Critic, but that was about as far as the reviewer would go. The book in question .was a new sort of dictionary, compiled by a local doctor named Peter Mark Roget. As far as the Critic could see in 1852, Roget's Thesaurus would never prove to be really "useful...
Chess & Geology. Dr. Roget did not start out in life to be one of Britain's grand masters of words. The son of a French Protestant minister, he was actually a scientific prodigy. At 12 he was teaching himself advanced mathematics; at 14 he entered the University of Edinburgh; at 19 he graduated as a full-fledged M.D. Eventually he became the nation's leading authority on physiology and anatomy...
...Beard the Lion ..." It all began with Roget's habit of listing words according to the way botanists classify plants and their families. But when he finally retired from practice in 1840, he decided to extend his listings further. To Roget, the abuse of language was becoming a menace. "A misapplied or misapprehended term," said he, "is sufficient to give rise to ... interminable disputes; a misnomer has turned the tide of popular opinion; a verbal sophism has decided a party question; an artful watchword, thrown among combustible materials, has kindled the flame of deadly warfare . . ." Roget hoped not only...
...matter, intellect, volition, affections). Then under each class he listed the pertinent one-word topics, following these with a rich array of synonyms, colloquialisms and comparisons. The topic courage, for instance, involved for him everything from audacity to spunk, Perseus to gamecock, to "beard the lion in his den." Roget also included appropriate quotations: e.g., "Every dog is a lion at home" . . . "The valiant never taste of death but once...