Instructify

Keep your synonyms simple with Thsrs

July 17, 2008

When I was a student, I would only use the thesaurus to look up bigger, more intelligent-sounding words, so I could trick my teachers into thinking that I was really smart (in retrospect, it most likely didn’t work). With age, though, I’ve gotten much wiser and I’ve learned to value using simpler words in my writing. Like George Orwell once said, “Never use a long word where a short one will do.”

With this philosophy in mind, the brains behind the Ironic Sans blog (creators of the addictive 50 States in 10 Minutes game) have come up with Thsrs, an online thesaurus that only suggests synonyms which are shorter than the word you look up. Enter “flabbergasted” and it suggests “surprised,” look up “inconsequential” and you get “unimportant.” Perfect!

So you might ask yourself, why would I ever need a shorter word? Well, aside from the sage advice of our dear friend George up there, the ways in which we communicate are continuously evolving. And, with the onset of micro-blogging platforms, like Twitter, and the widespread popularity of text messaging, keeping your thoughts clear and concise is crucial.

And, Thsrs makes a great tool with which to share this sentiment with your students — who I’m sure are bombarded everyday by excessive “txt msg” LOL OMG shorthand — to improve both their writing and their communication skills. Steer them in the right syntactic direction with shorter, simpler words and fewer ridiculous abbreviations — and make Mr. Orwell proud! — LAUREN FROHNE

Thsrs