rambling patter WORDS chitchat babble

Carpenters use hammers and nails. Cooks have their pots and pans. Painters need rollers, latex and ladders. A writer’s tools are words.

Sometimes the joy of stringing them together into something eloquent is indescribable. We know exactly what we want to impart to the reader but we get stuck for the right word to convey our meaning. And sometimes we find the right word and overuse it.

That’s when I reach for J.I. Rodale’s “The Synonym Finder." It’s a thesaurus in dictionary format which, in my humble opinion, makes it much easier to use. It contains an astounding 1,500,000 words. If you can’t find what you’re looking for it ain’t been said yet. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

My own paperback copy is getting dog-eared. The hardback is on my 2009 Christmas wish list. Are you reading this JP?