The Thinker's Thesaurus

Do you yearn to write and speak like Bill Buckley, and toss around five syllable words such as graminivorous, kakistocracy and illuminati? Are you someone (like me) who consults a thesaurus in search of the mot juste--just the right word--but is often disappointed? Do you browse dictionaries in search of interesting words? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then The Thinker's Thesaurus is for you.

The author of this volume Peter E. Meltzer says that it grew out of his own dissatisfaction with thesauruses, most of which contain arrays of synonyms that include only common words. Meltzer suggests that, by design, most thesauruses omit the most interesting synonyms. To find words like the examples in the paragraph above, one has to consult unabridged dictionaries, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, or specialized works, such as the Dictionary of Uncommon Words. But these are dictionaries, not thesauruses, so the reader must know of the word before it can be looked up.

The Thinker's Thesaurus has two sorts of entries. The first the "Single Base Word Entry" has an ordinary word and provides uncommon synonym (e.g. harmful with the synonym, nocuous). The author then gives an example of a contemporary writer using the synonym in a magazine article or book. The second type of entry, the "Clarifier Entry," expands on the base word to zero in on a particular meaning. So, for the word "laugh," Meltzer adds the clarifying phrase "loud and hard" and proposes the synonym, "cachinnate."

I could go on with hundreds of instances of interesting (or piquant) synonyms, but I will refrain from doing so. Get a hold of The Thinker''s Thesaurus, and browse for yourself. If you love words, you will be hooked on this book. One caveat, when you start using Meltzer's synonyms, get ready for the spell checker on your word processing program to have a conniption.

4. January, 2006 Book Sense Picks of the Month of the American Booksellers Association

THE THINKER'S THESAURUS: Sophisticated Alternatives to Common Words, by Peter E. Meltzer (Marion Street Press, $16.95 paper, 0972993797) "This unique volume (from the publisher of The Wrong Word Dictionary) will bring out the sophisticate in you, with its collection of big-money alternatives to the dime-store stalwarts found in your everyday Roget's. It's a gamesome synonymicon for the philologist and verbomaniac. Easy to use, easy to understand, and not a bit intimidating."

5. The City Paper - December 22-28, 2005--Article and interview
Uncommon Law

Peter Meltzer makes a case for using good words.

Interview by A.D. Amorosi

Thesauri are often pretty limited--dry books with dull synonyms. Philadelphia lawyer Peter E. Meltzer had enough of those limitations, of not finding the right word; the best word; the boldest, most imaginative word. So for a decade, he went on a lexicologist's odyssey and wrote The Thinker's Thesaurus for Marion Street Press, a niche publisher specializing in works for writers and journalists. For creating the most valuable new text for scribes and word lovers, Meltzer has been contacted by Microsoft Corporation to add the book to Microsoft Word. The book's also been selected as one of the American Booksellers Association's Book Sense picks for January 2006.

6. AskMen.com-March, 2006 Book Review

Are you a polymath or do you perpend to be a mooncalf when it comes to epistemophilia? Regardless of which of these congeries your ipesity lies with, Peter E. Meltzer's Thinker's Thesaurus will provide you with an ample supply of words or neoligisms to lucubrate with any Ph.D. graduate you may come across. Although the words Peter lists in his thesaurus may not always suit the neoligisms you are looking to replace, that doesn't mean that gamesome anthropoids who aren't bibliophages can't enjoy it.

7. OrneryLibrarian.com-May, 2006 Book Review

The Thinker's Thesaurus
Peter E. Meltzer

The Thinker's Thesaurus is a thing of beauty. Unsatisfied with the scope of most thesaurii on the market, Meltzer created this gem. It is a thesaurus with uncommon words; many are 5 dollar words, some are just silly words, and others are forgotten words. But reegardless, this is the thesaurus I want on my desk. Some examples:

drinking (of or related to) adj.: potatory. (157)
jinxed (perpetually ... , as in unlucky, person) n.: schlimazel [Yiddish]. (249)

... and who's blog is this... well here's the LIST for ornery: atrabilious, bilious, crosspatch, liverish, querulous, and shirty. (301)

My only complaint is that I would have liked pronunciation guides, but perhaps I am just being a shirty librarian.

bottom line: if you think size matters with words check this one out.

8. Amazon Reviews:

(5 stars) Any one interested in writing., November 16, 2005
Reviewer: Al Williams (Philadelphia, PA)

Write Peter Meltzer's name down and remember it! Meltzer's book titled The Thinker's Thesaurus: Sophisticated Alternative to Common Words was recently published and it is several light years in front of the "other" Thesauri currently on book shelves. I am a lawyer, a teacher, and a doctoral student and much of my time is spent writing or reading what someone else wrote. Meltzer's book provides the perfect key to finding the
exact word. I highly recommend this book to any one who writes or who just loves our language in all of its nuanced complexity. The book is well organized and easy to use as well as being fun just for browsing. It is a word hunter's delight and treasure trove. Remember the name Peter Meltzer. Adolphus Levi Williams Jr.

(5 stars) To be considered without cunctation!, December 26, 2005
Reviewer: Daniel L Pratt (USA)
Whenever I consider a new thesaurus, I look up the entry for "delay" to see whether "cunctation" appears. Needless to say, I am often disappointed. I think it's a thesaurus's role to alert users to such forms, even if the right time for using them rarely arises. Mr. Meltzer's opus not only provides this rare synonym, but also includes a citation of its use.

This book is designed to take off where other thesauri stop, so you won't want to get along without an ordinary thesaurus. This one rewards browsers. The 35-page introduction covers so many bases that it's worth the price of the book all by itself.

I suppose I would quibble with the author's heavy reliance on ephemeral sources (magazines and newspapers) rather than books, but some might regard that as a plus. In any event, consider this book: it may well be just the one you're looking for.

(5 stars) Eupeptic Over a New Kind of Thesaurus, April 6, 2006
Reviewer: D. L. Barnett (Paradise, CA USA)
Back in the day, say 1852, Peter Mark Roget, finding no thesaurus on the shelf, decided to write one himself, grouping words by related ideas and earning for himself a place in lexicographical history.

Subsequent thesauruses, rivals to Roget, dispensed with the grouping principle and simply listed words alphabetically. Not all of the synonyms were direct substitutes for the word synonymized. The assumption was (and is) that we readers know the nuances and simply need our mind jogged a bit. If we wanted a synonym for "steal" we might come across embezzle -- but we'd have to know that embezzling is a particular kind of stealing. (You can't embezzle a candy bar from the grocery store, but you can steal one. But you really shouldn't.)

Most of the synonyms in these word books were also likely as common as the original word -- ho-hum! Frankly, if we are looking for a sparkling alternative to quotidian diction, the thesaurus is a dinosaurus.

Of course, we might well turn to the many books that alphabetize unusual or obsolete words, but we can't have archaic and eat it, too, since how would we know that "natterjack" was just the word we wanted for a Western European toad that runs rather than hops?

Enter Philadelphia attorney Peter E. Meltzer who, after a decade of sedulous work on his avocation, has published "The Thinker's Thesaurus: Sophisticated Alternatives to Common Words" ($16.95 in paperback from Marion Street Press). Attempting to write the wrongs of thesauruses past (which he does in a marvelous 50-page introduction), Meltzer goes on to deliver the goods, thousands of ordinary words coupled with one or more less common synonyms. But he doesn't stop there. Some 75 percent of the entries contain "clarifiers" helping us understand the particular synonym's "spin." So wrongdoing "in public office" is malversation. And an occupation "requiring little work but paying an income" is a sinecure.

Meltzer writes that he has avoided the use of obsolete words (Shakespeare used a lot of them, but they weren't obsolete then, don't you know). To show their currency, the "thinker's synonyms" get illustrative quotations drawn from magazines, newspapers, and even books published in the last decade. The author quotes from a story in the Sydney Morning Herald from 2000 about the newest in adult education courses -- stripping. The quote comes in the entry for "bravado" and its synonym "fanfaronade": "Fanfaronade," says the story, "will take you through the steps necessary to become a confident exotic dancer. Each participant is expected to have partially completed a semester each of Tassel Making, Cracking Walnuts with Your Own Buttocks on Stage and Booking the Light Entertainment Circuit." Just so you know, there's also a good word for "having a nicely proportioned rear end": callipygian. Time magazine used it of Jennifer Lopez.

Some words cry out to be used in this day and age. Under "superficial (knowledge of a subject while pretending to be learned)" we find "sciolism" and a quote from a Montreal newspaper referring to talk show hosts. Oh, Canada: You, too?

What has me eupeptic (cheerful but, you know, in a scholarly way) is that "The Thinker's Thesaurus" is not a book for impressing friends with a lot of fanfaronade. It's a book that helps us think a little more clearly as we search for just the right word -- especially those who yearn to be philosophers and not mere philophasters.

This book may, however, make you a philosopher faster!

9. The book has also been chosen for the Writer's Digest Book Club and has been positively reviewed in:

1. The Philadelphia Daily News
2. Philadelphia Magazine
3. Jewish Exponent
4. Main Line Today
5. The Mensa Bulletin

10. Microsoft Corporation has contacted the author with an expression of interest in purchasing the contents of the book to add to the "Microsoft Word Thesaurus".

11. Radio interviews

1. KCLD FM 107.5, St. Cloud, Minnesota
2. WBIG FM, Aurora, IL
3. WMKT, Petoskey, MI
4. CKNX AM 920, Toronto, Ontario
5. KNZZ, Grand Junction, CO
6. WMET, Washington, DC (Greaseman)
7. KLRR-101.7, Bend, OR
8. WISR, Butler, PA
9. WGY, Albany, NY
10. KBIZ-Ottumwa, IA
11. WJBC-Bloomington, IL
12. KLOE-Goodland, KS
13. KCVM-Cedar Rapids, IO
14. WLW-Cincinnati, OH

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