Roget's Lexical Legacy

Today In History with The Retrospectors

Peter Mark Roget waited until retirement to compile his personal collection of synonyms into a book for publication: the first edition of Roget’s Theasurus, released on 29th April, 1852.

Despite initial scepticism from critics, who couldn't grasp its practical brilliance, the public embraced the new format - despite its unconventional organisation, in which synonyms were categorised by conceptual threads, rather than in alphabetical order.

In this episode, Arion, Olly and Rebecca explain how Roget drew inspiration from the systematic brilliance of Carl Linnaeus; discover literary references to the book in J.M. Barrie and Sylvia Plath; and question whether Roget’s work was an entirely positive development for journalism…

Further Reading:

• ‘Roget and His Thesaurus’ (The Saturday Evening Post, 2023): https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2023/01/roget-and-his-thesaurus/

• ‘Peter Mark Roget, the Keeper (See: Steward, Caretaker) of Synonyms’ (The New York Times, 2008): https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/books/18book.html

• ’Eulogy at a Roget's Thesaurus Funeral - Johnny Carson’ (NBC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSYzLJiSZzM

Love the show? Join 🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS 🌴 to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode every SUNDAY!

Plus, get weekly bonus bits, unlock over 70 bits of extra content and support our independent podcast.

Join now via Apple Podcasts or Patreon. Thanks!

We'll be back tomorrow! Follow us wherever you get your podcasts: podfollow.com/Retrospectors

The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.

Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.

Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2024.

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.