My 1911 Roget's Thesaurus and Me

My very favorite, must-have reference is Roget's Thesaurus--not just any Roget's Thesaurus [I find some versions worthless]--but the book first printed in 1911. My edition was published in 1946 by Thomas Y. Crowell Company. I have an MA in English; and I have written tons of papers, reviews, etc. I write daily; and I absolutely use this book many times each day. In fact, I bought my first edition of this book while I was in undergraduate school--in about 1970. I used it until my home burned. This was the first book that I replaced after that fire; and I did so by looking both at Amazon's collection of used books and on Ebay. The general rule about writing is that one should not use the same word over and over in the same paper. Yet, even the best word-hounds get stuck. Roget's Thesaurus is invaluable for help avoiding this mistake--and in avoiding it, without a large investment of time. For instance, I might be writing about a person who is funny; but I don't want to keep using that same, common descriptor in my paper. I can look at the back of my old, trustworthy, 1911 friend-- for the word "funny," which is listed in alphabetical order. I see that in using this word adjectivally, I might be talking about something that is odd [83.10]; something that is humorous [842.9]; or something that is ridiculous [855.5]. In order to find accurate alternatives for the term "funny," in any of these specific contexts, one would decide precisely what he/she wants to say--and then flip to the front of the book at either section 83.10; 842.9; or 855.5, to discover alternate ways of saying the same thing [synonyms and antonyms]. Just to be sure that I have made the correct choice, I double-check myself by reading the definition of the word that I have selected. I have discovered The American Heritage College dic-tion-ary to be more than able for this task--or for any other, requiring a certain degree of precision in word usage. I currently use the Fourth Edition, published by Houghton Mifflin; but unlike thesauri, many dictionaries would do.