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Enlgish for Wizards

The thesaurus is not extinct

By John Moore


類義語辞典機能の活用

ワープロソフトに付いている類義語辞典の機能を使ったことはありますか。分からない英単語があったとき、英和辞典を引く代わりに類義語辞典を活用して、ボキャブラリーを増やしましょう。

ワープロソフトや表計算ソフトを無料でダウンロードできるOpenOffice のサイト
A thesaurus is a dictionary of synonyms. It is not a dinosaur, despite sharing the "-saurus" ending with many dinosaur names. That reminds me of an interesting bilingual riddle: What store does my son Peter call "Omocha no Kyoryu"? (The answer is below.)

Many computer users already have a nice interactive thesaurus, even without knowing it. That's because Microsoft Word comes with a thesaurus, but it is usually not installed. It's a shame, too, because a thesaurus can be even more important for language learners than a dictionary.

Do you have Microsoft Word? If so, go to the menu at the top and look for Tools - Language - Thesaurus. You should see a small window where you can enter a word and find lots of other words that mean almost the same thing.

Try the thesaurus instead of a dictionary for any word you don't know. I entered "suave" in the blank and got "smooth, polished, polite, urbane, debonair, sophisticated, charming, courteous and gracious." Click on any word in the list, such as "courteous," and you'll get another list, with "well-mannered, considerate, civil and chivalrous." You can keep clicking forever and finding more new words.

But what if you have Microsoft Word without the thesaurus? You can install it by inserting your original Microsoft CD and clicking on the "Update" button, instead of doing a regular install. This lets you choose various extra things to install one-by-one. Find the thesaurus in the "Tools" section.

While you are doing that, you can also browse the other extra things Microsoft Word provides. There are a lot of templates and "wizards" to help you make your own New Years greeting cards, for example, or write a business letter in English.

The big problem with Microsoft Word, of course, is the cost. If you didn't get this software pre-installed with your computer, and if you don't want to pay ¥30,000 or so, you may feel left out.

Don't worry! There is another software that works almost exactly like Word, and it's free to download. Can you believe it? It's called OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org). It's available for Windows and Macintosh as well as Linux, and there's a Japanese version, too. The OpenOffice thesaurus works exactly like the Word thesaurus.

So what about "Omocha no Kyoryu"? That's Peter's name for Toys"R"Us, the giant chain store that Japanese kids pronounce like "Toy-saurus." It's fitting, I think.



Shukan ST: May 30, 2003

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