Thursday, May 03, 2007

Size DOES Matter

Verbs. How important can they be? I mean, if it were so important to choose verbs carefully, why do most of them have a million synonyms, thank you very much Mr. Thesaurus.

Well, kids, I'll tell ya.

Let's use a couple of common verbs for examples.

"Stop." "Block" Denotatively speaking (dictionary definition) they are almost identical. In a thesaurus, their synonyms overlap.

Thesaurus entry for "stop" and for "block:"

Main Entry: stop

Part of Speech: verb

Synonyms: arrest, avoid, bar, block, bottle up, break, can, check, choke, choke off, clog, close, congest, cut off, disrupt, fill, fix, forestall, frustrate, gag, hinder, hold back, hush hush, ice, impede, intercept, interrupt, muzzle, obstruct, occlude, plug, rein in, repress, restrain, seal, shut down, shut off, shut out, silence, stall, staunch, stay, stem, still, stopper, suspend, throw over, turn off, ward off

Main Entry: block

Part of Speech: verb

Synonyms: arrest, bar, barricade, block out, blockade, brake, bung up, catch, charge, check, choke, clog, close, close off, close out, congest, cut off, dam, deter, fill, halt, hang up*, hinder, hold up, impede, intercept, interfere, occlude, plug, prevent, shut off*, shut out, stall, stonewall, stop, stop up*, stopper, stymie, tackle, thwart

And these two fraternal twins differ. . . . how?

Like this:

Back in the day, when I wore shorts and began my descent from the car in a public place, I could stop traffic.

Now, that same action would block traffic.

Any questions?