"Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus" by J. Kendall

"There really was no such thing as a synonym, because no two words can mean exactly the same thing" Tell that to Peter Roget, the early 19th century polymath. Kendall's biography elucidates a life that, like the proverbial cat, had many lives. Successful doctor, public health reformer, inventor, scientist, and as we know him today, a creator of list.

We would also refer to him, if we were to dig a little deeper as Kendall has, as one who was afflicted by OCD - obsessive compulsive disorder. Whether by nature or nurture, certainly the latter had some influence. With a family who suffered from neuroses and psychosis, his excessive doting mother caged Roget almost since birth. "Burying himself in words was the only survival strategy available to him", Kendall notes. His escape was making lists of words, even as a young child. "I classify, therefore, I am" was his childhood motto.

As a man of medicine, thus with some privileges in a society of quasi obedient social structure, he fought for the humanity and future of the people he served, ensconced in a pollutant, poor, industrial state. Personal hygiene, and clean quarters, were of some practical utility that we would take for granted today, and public need, which Roget would preach. Meanwhile, nature and science, in his day called "natural theology", formed the basis of further classifying and study. So much so, he was asked to contribute to the serial publication of the Bridgewater Treatise; a collection of summations of science, for the glory of God. This was a time when science was edging in on the morals of theology. "He simply could not abide by the new paradigm" Kendall states "in which God was becoming increasingly irrelevant." His writings were very successful, and if one were predict history's final outcome, this volume would be a likely candidate.

However, time and history have a way of choosing it's own personal trait. After leaving medicine, retirement for one so prone to anxiety and fear of idle mind and hands, Roget momentarily struggled for his own fate. By mid-19th century in a glorious, proud nation like Great Britain created a populace that were hungry for learning. Literature and its structure, were amiss with theory and discord. Dictionaries and useful guides like a book of synonyms were cheap, and unsatisfying. They weren't consistently critical and structured. Urged on by family Roget dusted off his book of lists, something toyed with over his life, and spent several months refining the eventual treatise we come to know as Roget's Thesaurus. The stated purpose: "The appropriate terms, notwithstanding our utmost efforts, cannot be conjured up at will. Like "spirits from the vasty deep," they come not when we call."

Though successful in his time, the thesaurus was a regional volume. American editions popped up that sliced and diced the English to appease the American taste for language. But the thesaurus never took off until years after Roget died. In 1913 a New York newspaper created a game called "Fun". We would know it today as the first crossword puzzle. And as any crosswordian knows [I am sure there is some, single creation in the Oxford English Dictionary for one who is, if not addicted to the crossword, a 'professional' at the crossword. If they have come up with a word for those who create these puzzles - a cruciverbalist - then dam it, there should be one for the the addict who fills in little white boxes using a pen no less], one of the essential tools of the not so pure form of doing crosswords is the use of a thesaurus.

Biographer Kendall has dug deep into the life and lives touched by Roget. I was so enamored by the man (as I am with most polymath's) that the included references were gone over with a fine tooth comb. So much so, I wrote an essay based mostly on Roget's life for a local 'weekly' which I hope to post after it is published in the upcoming week or two.

No. 0868