‘Family, Daily Living & Style’
angiegaliza.blogspot.com
Thesaurus is just a reference that comes pre-installed
in Microsoft Word, it is offline mode. It
lists the synonyms (words with the same meaning) and antonyms (opposite
meaning) of a word. You could NOT completely rely on it on choosing the most
appropriate word for a context. Here are
the reminders one should always remember in using every writer’s bestfriend –
the Thesaurus:
Choose the
most appropriate word, first identify
the part of speech where it (the word you want to replace) belongs – how it
is being used in the sentence. You cannot find that FACT on a dictionary, the
sentence will tell you. Mastering the
parts of speech will help a lot.
i.e.
The
brethren will go
to the Philippine Arena for the 101st Anniversary Celebration.
Let us study
the sentence above. And I have highlighted the word ‘go’. If you encoded ‘go’ in your Microsoft Word’s Thesaurus:
Step 1:
On your word
document, go to the tool bar on top click on the ‘Review’ tab
Step 2
Hit the ‘Thesaurus’
button on the left side.
Step 3
Then when it
appears on the right side of your document encode the word you want to find its
synonyms on the space below ‘search for:’ example the word ‘go’ then press ENTER KEY.
Thesaurus
will yield result that offers you synonyms
in different parts of speech may be
nouns or verbs depending on the word you encoded (encoded is the right term to use when typing in a computer ) – you
have to select carefully what is appropriate, scroll down to see the full
search result. The first word written in bold (the headword/guideword) for
every given set of synonyms in different functions in speech is usually the most
familiar word in the set,
from there we could base our BEST CHOICE.
In the
example I have given above, we wanted to replace ‘go’ with another word that EXACTLY implies the same meaning as it is
being used in our sentence.
Wrong choice sample:
The brethren
will expire
to the Philippine Arena for the 101st Anniversary Celebration.
‘Expire’ is a verb too, but we used ‘go’ not to mean as ‘to
die’, see the set where the word ‘expire’
belongs – it is under the heading – die (v.) as written in bold
letters. That would actually mean –‘ the
children will die to the beach’, absurd of course!
‘Go’ in our sample sentence is used to
mean - travel (v.) if we are to choose from the set of given
synonyms. I will opt to use ‘proceed’
instead.
Let us do
the most PROPER replacement:
The brethren will proceed to
the Philippine Arena for the 101st Anniversary Celebration.
The meaning is intact or
unchanged or unharmed. The
word ‘proceed’
means the
same idea as we wanted to imply
when we still have ‘go’ as our verb. The other words in the sentence are kept like in the ORIGINAL sentence if
you notice.
***********************************************************
Let us
move-on to another example:
The
talk
is an awesome approach to start the Centennial Anniversary preparation.
On the above
sentence we may have used “talk” all over for example, on our
essay. Then we wanted to replace it.
Seeing how it is being used in the sentence, it is being used as a NOUN. That
means we have to IGNORE all the other synonyms listed as ‘ (v.)’ or verb on the Thesaurus yield when we type the word ‘talk’
only look at the ‘(n.) or noun’ yield. We
will narrow our choice on the synonyms with head words as (n.).
I would want
to choose ‘discussion’ among the list. Say I am still not happy with the
word, my first choice can also be clicked to yield another set of synonyms.
Doing that I found ‘symposium’ – and for me it is the most appropriate to use.
i. e. (that
is)
The
symposium
is an awesome approach to start the Centennial Anniversary preparation.
Analyzing
our original sentence, we can see that we succeeded to suggest the real idea
within; still with just a single word being replaced while keeping the rest of
the sentence intact.
****************************
Let us try
another example:
A good
leader is a good follower.
The sentence
above is a familiar axiom. We certainly knew what the word ‘good’
there actually means. Since we sometimes feel tired of hearing or using the
word ‘good’ over and over again, let
us find the most suitable replacement for the word. We found that the word ‘good’ there is an adjective
and not a noun in use, being a modifier to the ‘leader’.
So we eliminate the headword in
synonyms yield that says (n.) We limit
our search to the headwords with label (adj.)
Wrong choice would be:
A sound leader is a good
follower.
From the
headword ‘suitable (adj.)’ we can
find that word ‘sound’, it is an adjective too, that is a bit tricky. But it
gives a not so clear or confusing idea
to us of what a ‘good’ leader should be.
Clicking on the word ‘sound’ in the Thesaurus yield –
there, we could find the other synonyms of the word – it implies many things
BUT not what we wanted to imply to suffice our replacement. Words under the headword labeled as SOUND as
an adjective are ‘complete’, ‘whole’,
‘thorough’ although ‘good’ is listed too – but reading the synonyms listed below it
- such as ‘firm’, ‘unassailable’, ‘positive’
etc. no way we could suggest the same idea as the original context implies.
Here is my
personal choice as among the most
appropriate (meaning there are still other words that we may use instead):
From the
headword ‘decent (adj.)’ (going
back to ‘good’ as our search word)
, I found the word ‘virtuous’ as the most appropriate BUT I do not think that my
student readers who are not so fluent in English can understand it. I decided
to click on the word ‘virtuous’ to find another word that
suits the need. There I found ‘righteous’.
i.e.
A righteous
leader is a good follower.
Please take
note that ‘honest’ and ‘upright’
may also be used instead. Both words are located
on the list
of the synonyms for ‘virtuous’.
I do hope
that I have given you some helpful ideas on the use of THESAURUS and that the
examples I have provided are enough to clarify confusion on your part. I also aimed to caution you with just
picking words randomly without analyzing the meaning it would give in case
substituted, I hope my fellow writers shall be well-guided too.
If this post
has helped you and you think will help others please give it a plus and I would
not mind you sharing (not duplicating/copying) a link to this post by re-sharing
it on your favorite social sites like G+, Twitter, Pinterest, Fb or I really
would not mind and be very thankful too of letting your friends know about this
site you can copy this link- FamDaiLivStyleMag and paste it to your timeline . That would be much
appreciated. And if you want to
have more of this kind, join my community I LOVE English Community and turn notifications ‘on’.
Thanks too
for recommending me at Sverve by clicking the field listed therein where you
think I am doing great…another is that if, you’re not tired yet on clicking
please Recommend this blog (just one click per person) to Google by clicking the G+ button on the upper
left part of the page of this
blog. You just don’t know how thankful I would be to you for doing that. Thank
you for helping this humble blog to grow.
No comments:
Post a Comment