What I’d want to mention here is something equally terrible, equally dreadful and as huge as these Dinosaurs.
The name of my post says it all, The ‘saurus’quotient, or simply, Thesaurus quotient!
Yes, the same li’l (?) book that contains all those similar meaning words placed together, which has no better a use than to be looked upon while playing Scrabble or solving Crosswords. It has some irritating magical powers to convert the simplest of all monosyllabic words into such polysyllabic alternatives which can scare even the bravest of the lot to death. This saurus is even worse than the Tyrannosaurus for the simple reason that it’s not extinct, yet!
To be honest I appreciate people who love words and put them into use. Kudos guys! But what I flounder comprehending is the ulterior motive which reclines in instigating the dispensable adhibition of such words as a part of a perfunctory conversation. Err…in better words, why the heck should you use such words while having a casual talk? Use them to flatter your English professors!
Infact what I dislike (and the reason behind this post) is the fact that almost all the aspiring poets these days write poems which can never be deciphered until you fall in love with a thesaurus. I had been going through few poems lately and c’mon guys, why so serious? I mean even the most famous and memorable of all poems have been as simple as reading your own thoughts. Frost, Keats, Milton or even Shakespeare, all used simple words and transformed them into pieces that struck a chord with the readers immediately; that’s where the beauty of a poem lies. Have a look at some of the famous works:
But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep.
Or
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
See, who says plain casual words can’t bring about the impact? Here, as I go about these lines I can draw out the meaning and interpret it beautifully, rather than looking up for the words in thesaurus and in the end flipping the poem away!
Today, the way these budding poets are using the esteemed word list, the poems might change completely.
Take a part of the famous poem ‘The Road Not Taken’,
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
This would be rewritten by modern day poets as,
I shall be concurring this with a suspire
Somewhere aeons and aeons subsequently:
Two boulevards swerved in a wood, and I--
I acquired the one meagerly perambulated by,
And that has begotten all the distinctness.
A great display of your rich vocabulary, I’d say, but *poof* disappeared the simplicity of the poem, that it is most remembered for. ‘Unsaid words speak the best’ might be an exaggeration, but simple words touching your heart certainly do convey the best.
More than for these poets I actually feel bad for the kids, for when these thesaurus obsessed people become teachers, guides and parents they might even modify the utterly simple ‘Jack and Jill’ nursery rhyme into something on the lines of:
Jack and Jill trekked up the hummock,
To fetch a repository of water,
Jack plummeted down and wrecked his crown,
And Jill came hurtling after.
Yeah, though it might be interesting to listen to the tiny-tots singing or rather pronouncing this down!
However in the evolution of English as a language, I just hope the Jurassic period of the reign of the-saurus ends as soon as possible and that era arrives where simple, sensible, syntactically sound sentences flourish. Err…just the grammatically correct ones I meant! ;)
