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April 29th, 1852 and another remarkable event

0:57

is about to be uncovered by Aria,

1:00

Rebecca and Ali, the

1:03

Retrospectors. So

1:05

it's today in history, the past antiquity

1:07

that the first edition copy version of

1:10

Peter Roget's Thesaurus Glossary Lexicon was published,

1:12

printed or released in Great Britain. Oh

1:14

my god, is this the next 10

1:16

minutes? I

1:20

was just finishing actually. It was published in

1:22

Great Britain, the UK, Brexit land. Roget

1:27

had compiled what became published as his

1:29

Thesaurus in his 20s, but by

1:32

the time it was actually published, he was

1:34

73. He reflects on this in the foreword

1:36

where he writes, it is now nearly 50

1:38

years since I first projected a system of

1:40

verbal classification similar to that on which the

1:42

present work is founded. Conceiving that such a

1:44

compilation might help supply my own deficiencies, I

1:46

had in the year 1805 completed

1:49

a classed catalogue of words on a small

1:51

scale, but on the same principle and nearly

1:53

the same form as the Thesaurus now published.

1:55

And there was a huge demand. It went through

1:57

28 print runs in Roget's life.

2:00

lifetime. Yes, it's funny isn't it?

2:02

The public understood it immediately. Here is a

2:04

really useful guide for if you're writing stuff

2:06

and you want to use the different words

2:08

to the word that immediately occurs to you.

2:11

And yet critics didn't understand it. Its

2:14

practical utility we think is overrated,

2:16

Harper's Magazine wrote. The London

2:18

critics said, it is not likely to be

2:20

so practically useful as the care, toil and

2:22

thought bestowed upon it might have deserved. It's

2:25

like one of my successful books of all time. But

2:29

that care, toil and thought absolutely

2:31

resonates throughout Roget's

2:33

career. As you said, he'd

2:35

been working on this for decades, initially just for

2:37

his own personal enjoyment as

2:40

a tool for him when

2:42

he was writing. He'd been writing entries for Encyclopedia

2:44

Britannica as well as being a doctor. But

2:47

also with a distant view to one day I

2:49

might like to publish this. And

2:51

I just love the fact that he actually genuinely

2:53

in this era, 1850, waited until his

2:57

retirement when there was a very

2:59

real risk he was about to pop his glogs. But

3:01

he waited and then made it

3:03

a retirement project and lasted another three decades

3:06

and got to see the incredible success of

3:08

it and have a complete second career with

3:10

it. It is amazing. But you can understand

3:13

some of the criticisms that were being leveled

3:15

at this book when it came out. Because

3:17

the 15,000 words it contained were arranged conceptually

3:19

rather than alphabetically. And in fact the alphabetical

3:22

index that he added at the end was

3:24

sort of an afterthought. He hadn't originally had

3:26

in mind that he wanted to

3:29

have that as part of the book. And I've

3:31

got a copy here and you can actually see

3:33

his… Whoops! He really does have a

3:35

copy of that. You

3:38

can actually see his brain working

3:40

by the way that each chapter

3:42

unfolds. So for example, section two,

3:44

dimensions. The entries go in

3:46

order size, littleness, expansion, distance,

3:48

contraction. So they're not obviously going

3:51

in alphabetical order but you can

3:53

see his brain working going… So

3:55

these are the things that people

3:57

are going to need synonyms for.

4:00

and only if you consult the back of the book, which

4:02

was the thing that he came up with at the end,

4:04

could you find your way to them in a sensible way?

4:06

Yeah, it's essentially a taxonomy of the

4:08

English language, kind of modelled on the

4:11

taxonomy of the animal kingdom. Roget's idol

4:13

was the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, who

4:15

developed the system we use to classify

4:18

the natural world today. Those two were

4:20

Latin descriptors, you know, aloe vera, boba

4:22

constrictor, ratas ratas. And so Roget did

4:25

the same thing for the English language,

4:27

those six general classes. For instance, under

4:29

the class of matter, you find fluid

4:32

matter. Under fluid matter, you'd find ocean.

4:34

And under ocean, you'll find a word

4:36

group which includes synonyms, sea, deep,

4:38

brine, saltwater, waves. And you can

4:40

really see the way that Roget's

4:42

mind worked, because there were 1002

4:46

word groups in the tome. And he made two

4:48

of them, A and B subsections,

4:50

to make sure they stayed that round number of

4:52

1000. Because the thing was,

4:55

you think, well, you know, it

4:57

would be more useful as a work of

4:59

reference, if it were alphabetical. But he wasn't really

5:01

about making it into a useful work of

5:03

reference, as much as he was about making

5:05

sure everything was classified in its place and

5:07

in its section, what he was actually doing was

5:09

creating a map of the English language that

5:11

you could navigate, it required a lot more

5:13

brainpower to find the words you wanted, you

5:16

had to understand where it sits philosophically

5:18

before you can start looking for it.

5:21

You know, obviously, the alphabetical index that

5:23

he added in would become the standard

5:25

way of organizing a thesaurus going forward,

5:27

except roger's, which is still in print

5:29

and remains faithful, as Ariane has shown

5:32

us just now to that original taxonomy.

5:34

Although by the way, just a side note on

5:36

the copyright, anyone can call

5:38

their thesaurus roger's just as

5:40

anyone can call addiction rewebsters

5:42

the proprietary way to monetize

5:44

things to go away and

5:46

think about it roger's specters

5:52

the proprietary bit which is copyrighted

5:54

by harper collins these days is

5:56

roger's international thesaurus you can't call

5:58

it that but you can call it

6:00

roger something else. I can

6:02

work around that. But I mean I've got

6:04

a book that will show me a perfect

6:06

synonym for international. But I think

6:08

you know saying that he didn't have an

6:10

interest in it being a utility more an

6:12

interest in just ordering the world. I think

6:15

he was doing both it's just that for him

6:17

because he was such a polymath he was a

6:19

physician he was a mathematician he was a scientist

6:22

he liked to play chess he by the

6:24

way invented the first travel chess set as

6:27

well. Because

6:29

he thought in that very mathematical way about

6:31

ordering things for him it was a tool

6:33

of utility. But yet it is a surprise

6:35

when you look at the original Rojo's Thesaurus

6:37

published on this day to realise that the

6:39

first entry doesn't begin with an A. The

6:41

first entry is existence. Right.

6:45

Yes I've never been out of print since it was first

6:47

published and by 2002 it had sold

6:49

over 32 million copies I'm sure

6:51

even more by now. Interestingly it was an

6:54

instant hit in Britain but it didn't sell

6:56

that well when an American

6:58

edition was published two years later. But

7:00

when Americans went crazy for crossword puzzles

7:03

in the 1920s Thesaurus assumed

7:05

its place on reference shelves across

7:07

the US. And now you know

7:09

in the years since it's really

7:11

been celebrated particularly by writers that

7:13

Peter Pan creator J.M. Barry put a copy

7:16

of his Thesaurus in Captain Hook's cabin so

7:18

he could declare the man is not wholly

7:20

evil he has a Thesaurus in his cabin

7:23

and the 20th century poet

7:25

Sylvia Plath called herself Roger's

7:27

trumpet. And

7:31

we mentioned that it took 50 years to

7:33

get published but the journey towards creating the

7:35

Thesaurus had begun even earlier. Rojo was obviously

7:37

passionate about language but he was even more

7:40

passionate about lists. From early childhood he had

7:42

always tried to categorise everything he encountered. I

7:44

mean he also struggled with depression throughout his

7:46

life and it doesn't take too much amateur

7:48

psychology to see how this obsessive need

7:51

to order everything could be a bit of a

7:53

coping mechanism. He Had a really glittering

7:55

career as a respected physician. He Was born in London

7:57

in 1779, his father was a young. We

8:00

had for surname thing, that's that French

8:02

derive race. He studied medicine university of

8:04

Edinburgh and then he ultimately ended up

8:06

at the Manchester When and farm read

8:09

it with. here they began compiling his

8:11

wordless supposedly youth irritated by the frequent

8:13

repetition of words and but go out.

8:15

I mean, I'm not sure medicine as

8:17

the best place for lots of vague

8:19

synonyms. Got like transfer or

8:21

something. Of

8:23

another word for payment always a

8:26

concern for the seventeenth. Century several

8:28

think it's had attempted secret lists synonyms.

8:30

This is part of why that kind

8:33

of age of enlightenment preoccupation with language

8:35

and meaning. however these are generally more

8:37

like essays or of academics Times in

8:39

A they had names like English synonyms

8:42

explained and the difference between words steam

8:44

synonyms in the English language and the

8:46

properties of them determined and of a

8:49

kind of in this tradition that raise

8:51

it was writing T but the fact

8:53

that his compendium was so exhausted did

8:56

make instantly popular as a reference. Lead

8:58

us you understand what his intentions are.

9:00

You know to sort of autistic utility

9:02

of the subtitle Roget's thesaurus of English

9:05

words and phrases classified into writing. So

9:07

to assist in victory opposition are in

9:09

he did you get What Body by

9:12

Jake Whereas some of the prior examples

9:14

of is the I'm Been quite as

9:16

though cynically commercial as that's. Yeah,

9:18

devices was a stem girly as to

9:20

be said he ended his career as

9:22

a professor of sociology se van een

9:24

at a scientific side as medicine. He

9:26

retired from practicing at Nuts early as

9:28

he retired or together for medicine in

9:30

eighteen forty eight to Sixty lot and

9:32

he kind of started going back to

9:34

the thesaurus idea he was will say

9:36

secretary of the Royal Society when a

9:39

nice eminent the subject and really haven't

9:41

public science at me and the case

9:43

and it wasn't until eighteen Forty eight

9:45

when he finally stepped down Sunset Post

9:47

he really he threw himself. Into getting the

9:49

the Sorus. into publishable shape and yet

9:51

you know we've been celebrating him

9:53

throughout this episode however the classic

9:55

danger as a writer is that

9:58

by having this easy referee And

10:00

of course, it's even easier now with this auras.com etc.

10:03

Is that what you're doing is you're not trying

10:05

to find the best words to summarize your thoughts

10:08

You're just thinking I'm saying the

10:10

same thing repeatedly and that's boring to read

10:12

rhythmically So let me substitute one

10:14

of these words for a replacement. So

10:17

it feels like there's some variation in what I've written Yeah,

10:20

actually the copy that ends up afterwards is often

10:22

substantially worse than if you just thought harder about

10:24

what the right word would be And

10:27

the classic example is when restaurant reviewers use

10:29

the phrase eatery I mean no one says

10:31

eatery in real life But

10:33

it's because they don't want to say

10:35

restaurant five times in the article Plus

10:37

you also have English constantly being expanded

10:39

by slang And of course we

10:41

can all lean on the urban dictionary to help

10:44

us work out what various slang words mean But

10:46

what if you want to think of

10:49

some other word for one of your

10:51

favorite slang words? Well, there's also the

10:53

urban thesaurus Yeah, it's so great I

10:55

went and typed in the word money

10:57

and you get Skrilla

10:59

cheddar moolah coin and bling out

11:02

for that Now

11:04

that's a shot. Yeah I

11:09

wonder which one of the six classifications Tomorrow

11:14

a plastic buddy with an incredibly

11:16

sharp icon top like the kind that

11:18

German soldiers had in World War one on their helmet The

11:22

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