The Word Finder [antikvár]

PREFACE To The New EditionThe word finder is a revised and enlarged edition of three volumes now out-of-print, the verb-finder, the adjective-finder and the ad verb-finder, and includes the originál Prefaces to those valuable works as well as that to our more recent THE SUBSTITUTE FOR "VERY." Thus, the purpose, method, and writing aids of four useful volumes are conveniently embraced in this composite.What is the word finder? Is it a new kind of thesaurus? The answer is emphatically no! In a thesaurus one looks for sub-stitutes for the word he has in mind. If he wishes to say large, refer-ence to a thesaurus will supply him with a better word such as spa-cious. The word finder, on the other hand, does not merely yield a substitute word but produces an augmentative word, one to embellish and add to the idea. Thus, in the word finder by referring to the adjective large the user is taught to describe how large? by a selected list of words such as incalculably, incredibly, pre-posterously, overzuhelmingly, prodigiously, inordinately, etc.The word finder has been created to improve a writer's style by adding to the bare-essential words of a sentence. A thesaurus does not do that. It merely assists the user to change such a sentence as "This business had a loss" to somé such variant as This trade suffered a reversal. The word finder, however, teaches one that "business droops, expires, jalters, founders, simmers, and succumbs," simply by referring to the noun business. And if none of these adjuvant words is precisely what the writer has in mind to describe a languishing trade, the word finder will teli him, alsó under the heading business, to see occupation, trade, concern, enterprise, industry, work, commerce, etc.Nouns, verbs, and adjectives are listed, alphabetically arranged, and in connection with each such word a list of augmentatives" is given, that is, words that can be used to condition such a noun, verb,