{"id":18754,"date":"2020-08-27T10:56:35","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T14:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.pimsleur.com\/?p=18754"},"modified":"2025-11-21T12:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:09:09","slug":"history-rogets-thesaurus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pimsleur.com\/blog\/history-rogets-thesaurus\/","title":{"rendered":"Order From Tragedy: Roget and The Origin Of The First Thesaurus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beautiful Tools Borne Out of Less Beautiful Circumstances – Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869) <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Peter Mark Roget was a\nremarkable man. A lexicographer whose invention has helped almost everyone who\nspeaks English at some point or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t believe us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ll almost\ndefinitely have used an item he created. There may even be one on your\nbookshelf at home. And you\u2019ll certainly have one on your computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re talking, of\ncourse, about the thesaurus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This humble book was\nfirst written by Roget himself, who gave his name to the first English-language\nversions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since it was first\npublished, the thesaurus has been used by crossword puzzlers, writers, students,\njournalists, and academics alike in a bid to expand their vocabulary or create\ncompelling work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Its digitization and\nincorporation into word processing programs, such as Microsoft Word, only made\nit even more popular. Nowadays, looking up synonyms is as simple as a mere\nright-click.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although we have a lot\nto thank Roget for, the true story behind the first thesaurus is nothing short\nof a tragedy. Let\u2019s learn more about the man behind the thesaurus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Learned Man<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
From a privileged\nbackground, with revered lawyers and clerics among his close family, Roget\njoined an equally prestigious profession in becoming a physician. <\/p>\n\n\n\nBy Thomas Pettigrew – Medical Portrait Gallery, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
However, Dr. Roget\u2019s interests were not limited to medicine alone: with an inquisitive mind, his interests, skills, and talents were as diverse as they were interesting. From beekeeping to chess, the kaleidoscope, and cinematics, there was not much he didn\u2019t enjoy getting stuck into, working in collaboration with many scientists and academics as well as maintaining an active physician\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his career, he had a hand in discovering nitrous oxide as an anesthetic, the creation of the London sewage system, the invention of the slide rule, and the development of the cinema industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Counting Samuel Taylor\nColeridge and Poet Laureate William Wordsworth among his friends, he was a\nprolific figure in the intellectual world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, behind the\naccolades and accomplishments laid a tragic story that propelled him to create\na book that would go on to become one of the most useful reference tools in the\nEnglish language. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Escape From Madness – The Man Who Made Lists to Cope With Mental Illness<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Roget\u2019s life was trauma-filled from the beginning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peter struggled with\ndepression his whole life. His mother, Catherine, never recovered after Peter\u2019s\nfather died when Peter was four years old. A difficult, demanding, and paranoid\nwoman, life with Catherine was turbulent, with her often accusing the help of\nplotting against her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Things were not much\nbetter in Peter\u2019s wider family: his sister and grandmother both suffered poor\nmental health, plagued by depression and schizophrenia. His daughter would go\non to suffer similar troubles. Most tragically, Peter was in the room when his\nuncle Sir Samuel Romilly took his own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pain, grief, and sorrow surrounding Peter\u2019s tragic family circumstances would be difficult for any regular person to cope with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peter Mark Roget,\nhowever, was not a regular person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the age of 8,\nPeter had had an obsessive habit of making lists to help him cope with his\ntraumatic family life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The History of Roget’s Thesaurus – One of the Most Widely Used Reference Works Ever Published<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Aged 26, Peter began his reverse dictionary: a list of synonyms; a tool for situations where the user already knows the definition but needs the related word. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Originally started as\na reference to help him become a better writer, expanding his compendium of\nsynonyms swiftly became more than a pastime. It was a coping mechanism for the\nextensive tragedy in his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He collected words\nwith the thirst of a man with a purpose. Grouping the words according to\nsubject and discipline, this organizational fervor was a source of stability\nfor Peter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking back from the\n21st<\/sup> century, and with the mental health awareness we have now, we\ncan tell this obsession with organization was typical obsessive-compulsive behavior\n\u2013 rigid, inflexible, and bound by order. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nonetheless, amassing the 15,000 entries in his private synonym collection was no mean feat. Spanning multiple disciplines and specialties, the thesaurus reflected Peter\u2019s eclectic interests and diverse scholarly pursuits. How one man\u2019s knowledge could so effectively cover so many fields is truly astonishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ever the intellectual, Peter looked to the Greek language to name his invention. The word he chose for his curation reflects his love for the collection of words. He called it a \u2018treasure house\u2019: a thesaurus<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Publishing the First Thesaurus<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
At first, Peter\u2019s\nthesaurus was a private work. Only after he had retired from professional life in\nthe 1840s did he think about organizing and publishing it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inspired by the systems used for classifying books, plants, and animals, Peter spent years crafting and perfecting an indexing system for his synonyms to make them accessible to others. This mammoth task kept his brain busy during his retirement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first edition of Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases <\/em>was printed in 1852, and has never been out of print since.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Immediately popular in\nBritain, the thesaurus gained a similar following in the United States when\ncrossword puzzles began to become popular in the 1920s. The book has since become\na permanent fixture in every library reference section. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Peter\u2019s death in\n1869, his son John Lewis Roget revised and expanded the thesaurus, with John\u2019s\nown son Samuel Romilly Roget then taking the mantle of the lexicographical\ndynasty well into the mid-20th<\/sup> Century, propelling Roget\u2019s thesaurus\nto what it is today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is remarkable to\nthink that such a library staple was created as a way to cope with mental health\nstruggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noah Webster: the Man Behind the American English Dictionary<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Strangely enough, a\nsimilar tale lies behind the creation of the first American English dictionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noah Webster, a man\nhugely influential in creating American English as we know it today, also\ncreated a great reference work to cope with poor mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suffering from depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder after completing his academic studies, Noah found solace in writing books to help schoolchildren learn and master English. Sales of these widely used \u2018Blue-Backed<\/em> Speller\u2019<\/em> books funded his true passion: his dictionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his own word\ncollection, Noah wanted to recognize and streamline the various dialects found\nin English spoken all across North America. In curating his collection of more\nthan 70,000 words, he normalized American English spellings and recorded more\nthan 12,000 uniquely American words in a dictionary for the first time ever\nwhen he published the first edition in 1828.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![\"history](\"https:\/\/d3brn974kg3172.cloudfront.net\/2020\/08\/Roget_P_M-819x1024.jpg\")