Homage to a Thesaurus

My thesaurus has a wine-colored leather cover with gold lettering. Published in 1977, it has weathered the years remarkably well. The only page which bears the mark of age refers to "similarity" and "dissimilarity." The dread of the middle school "compare and contrast" paper comes flooding back to me. Perhaps this page registers not only use, but also frustration on its delicate, but crumpled and torn, page.

I wish to honor this thesaurus today; it has served me well in writing reports, poetry, seminar papers, and now the dissertation. As a younger, fresher-faced writer, I searched this tome for lively words. My tender seventh grade reports twinkled with glittery words like: perspicacity, auroral, or temerarious.

Now, the thesaurus has become a clever way to repair tired dissertation prose. That is, when I can't bear to edit my current project, I turn to my trusted thesaurus for aid. I go through my work looking for words of little interest. (My thesaurus suggests that these words might be wearying, humdrum, dusty, or stuporific.) With the help of my thesaurus I turn soporific prose into much more vivacious and nuanced writing. Ultimately, this has been fun way to return to my dissertation when I almost can't endure it (perservere, keep the pot boiling, hammer away, brazen it out, hang on like a leech).