''The Well-Spoken Thesaurus'' by Tom Heehler (

Sourcebooks Sourcebooks, Inc., is an independent book publisher located in Naperville, Illinois. The company publishes books, ebooks, and digital products, and is one of the 20 largest publishers in the United States. History The company was founded in 1 ...

2011), is an American style guide and speaking aid. The ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'' calls ''The Well-Spoken Thesaurus'' "a celebration of the spoken word". The book has also been reviewed in the ''

Winnipeg Free Press The ''Winnipeg Free Press'' (or WFP; founded as the ''Manitoba Free Press'') is a daily (excluding Sunday) broadsheet newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It provides coverage of local, provincial, national, and international news, as well as ...

'', and by bloggers at the ''

Fayetteville Observer ''The Fayetteville Observer'' is an American English-language daily newspaper published in Fayetteville, North Carolina. As the oldest North Carolina newspaper, the paper was founded in 1816 as the ''Carolina Observer''. It was locally owned by ...

'', and the ''

Seattle Post-Intelligencer The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington, United States. The newspaper was f ...

''.Seattle Post-Intelligencer http://blog.seattlepi.com/thewritersblock/2011/05/20/book-review-the-well-spoken-thesaurus/

Content

The book consists of two sections—a 50-page style guide entitled "Rhetorical Form and Design", and a 350-page

thesaurus A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea: Synonym dictionar ...

section. However, what distinguishes this thesaurus from all conventional thesauri is the inclusion of what the author calls rhetorically related words, or ''powernyms''—as opposed to merely synonymous words. According to Heehler, these powernyms allow users to more readily transform rough drafts into more eloquent improvements. In "Rhetorical Form and Design," Heehler serves up 17 lessons from such writers and speakers as

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...

, Margaret Atwood, John Steinbeck,

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

, and Cintra Wilson. Rhetorical and literary techniques covered include the objective correlative, rhetorical objectification, verb displacement, rhetorical agency, rhetorical tension, poetic articles, preposition exchange, creative number, and intuitive description.

Origins

According to Heehler, the idea for ''The Well-Spoken Thesaurus'' came to him while attending the

Harvard Extension School Harvard Extension School (HES) is the extension school of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school is one among 12 schools that grant degrees and falls under the Division of Continuing Education in the Harvard Faculty of Art ...

, where he came to realize just how poorly spoken he truly was. And because there were no books available with which to solve his problem, he began to create a database of eloquent words. Whenever he would chance upon a well-spoken word or phrase at Harvard, he would pair that with what ''he'' would have said. After three years of doing this, of "collecting words like butterflies," he decided that his "butterfly collection" could be of use to others.

References

External links

The Well-Spoken Thesaurus Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Well-Spoken Thesaurus 2011 non-fiction books English language in the United States Thesauri (lexicography) Style guides for American English Sourcebooks books