Wordsmithing on #Thesaurus Day
Did you know that today is National Thesaurus Day?
A thesaurus is a book that compiles words grouped by similarity of meaning. The term thesaurus comes from the Greek word, thesauros, meaning treasure or storehouse.
Time and Date
According to Time and Date, the unofficial holiday commemorates the birth anniversary of British lexicographer and physician, Peter Mark Roget, the author of Roget’s Thesaurus. I love the statement that “it is believed that Roget worked on making word lists that later became the Roget’s Thesaurus as a way to combat with depression and mental illness.”
Roget’s Thesaurus is one of the most widely used reference books in the English language around the world. It was first published in 1852 with 15,000 words. Since then, the book has never gone out of publication.
As a child, I received my first Roget’s Thesaurus as a Christmas gift – which tells you all you need to know about what a word geek I was – and still am!
Throughout my school days, I referred to that dog-eared book every time I wrote an essay. Even today I use it (although via an app) and I still love learning new words.
Petrichor is one of my favourite words – that amazing smell you get during and after a rain fall, when raindrops fall on the ground.
What about you – what is a favourite word you like to use?
My dear Marie, the word Petrichor does not come up in modern lexicon very often so I simply have to tell you how I came to know it! You might remember (although there’s no earthly reason why you should, lol) that after the latter breast cancer years, and all the other ‘life’ fallout that happened around the same time, I moved to a tiny village in the middle of nowhere and retrained as a photographer.
It so happens that in this tiny village are a handful of highly talented artists, one of whom is a musician held in extremely high regard in his field, and who specialises in classical/folk of the 17th & 18th Century. During the first lockdown he started work on an album he decided to call PETRICHOR because he loved the word. He asked my to photograph the album cover and we used a beautiful stone he had in his garden… and I fell in love with the word! Yes that earthiness so evocative of sunshine after rain, but also when you break down the origins of the word (wikipedia gives us pétra ‘rock’ or pétros ‘stone’, and ikhṓr the ethereal fluid that is the blood of the gods in Greek mythology) how can you not be blown away by a word that encompasses the blood and strength of the gods?!.
Anyway – as ever, the chosen album cover was not my personal favourite (clients never choose the ones I like, lol); maybe I’ll get around to posting those on my insta at some point 😉 Search Petrichor by Paul Hutchinson if you like that stuff – quite soothing 🙂
So thank you again dear girl, for reminding me of the gift of that beautiful word and the good memory of how I came to learn it. And I’m with you – a good thesaurus is one of life’s most singularly precious things!
Much love always Sx
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Oh Sarah I can’t tell you how much your comment made my heart sign at the synchronicity of this. What a wonderful story!!! I will be sure to keep an eye on your insta for your photos. You are such a talented photographer and yes of course I remember very well your change of career. I check your blog every week in the hopes you have updated it – I miss hearing more from you x
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