Path: news.easynews.com!easynews!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsxfer.eecs.umich.edu!cyclone.rdc-detw.rr.com!news.mw.mediaone.net!jxnws01!typhoon.jacksonville.mediaone.net.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Steve Long" Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory References: Subject: Re: What's another word for Thesaurus Lines: 32 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 12:52:22 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.61.10.205 X-Complaints-To: abuse@mediaone.net X-Trace: typhoon.jacksonville.mediaone.net 999607942 66.61.10.205 (Tue, 04 Sep 2001 08:52:22 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 08:52:22 EDT Xref: easynews comp.databases.theory:18241 X-Received-Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 06:04:27 MST (news.easynews.com) Peter Mark Roget, a British physician and philologist, born January 18th, 1779, is best known as the creator of Roget's Thesaurus. In his spare time, Roget had conceived the concept of classifying words and, by 1805, had created a short (15 000 word) collection which he used for personal reference, "conceiving that such a compilation might help to supply my own deficiencies." He said of the early attempt, "scantly and imperfect as it was, [was] of much use to me in literary composition." In 1808, he began practicing medicine in London, and did not begin improving upon his collection or words until age 61, as a retirement project. He completed and published this revised edition in 1852 at age 73, dubbing it the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. The word thesaurus is Latin for "treasure house," which describes exactly how Roget viewed his creation. Upon publication, the work was immediately popular, and went through 28 revisions before his death in 1869. Subsequently, both his son and grandson maintained the updates until 1886, when the task was passed to the New York firm of Thomas Y. Crowell, which has published the work to this day. The 1992 edition now contains over a quarter of a million words. "David Cressey" wrote in message news:M63l7.413$Iw2.26583@petpeeve.ziplink.net... > > > -- > Regards, > David Cressey > www.dcressey.com > >