For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for November 14, 2017

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    howtheduck  almost 7 years ago

    Well, Elly, I hate to break it to you but this is a bad idea. A thesaurus will have curse words in it. You may be giving Mike a way to learn new curse words.

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    Templo S.U.D.  almost 7 years ago

    oh, har-dee-har-har, Mike… enough with the paleontology puns already

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    Rosette  almost 7 years ago

    Dinosaurs didn’t die a million years ago.

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    Argythree  almost 7 years ago

    SPOILER ALERT

    Hard to believe that Mike ends up as a writer when he’s so allergic to words other than curses…

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    Macushlalondra  almost 7 years ago

    Uggghhhh, one of my pet peeves. It’s "I bought you each a thesaurus not both. Since there are two books it’s each, if they were expected to share one book it would be both.

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    VampiricUnicorn  almost 7 years ago

    A thesaurus: a writer’s best friend. Also known as: how to describe something without using the same words twenty zillion times in a paragraph.

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    Katsuro Premium Member almost 7 years ago

    We don’t see Ellie using a very voluminous vocabulary either. Just saying.

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    dlkrueger33  almost 7 years ago

    As someone who wrote a lot of poetry in my younger days (the joy of English majors), my thesaurus was my BIBLE. I still have one, even though I can obviously use a virtual one on my computer.

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    tripwire45  almost 7 years ago

    I actually had to do this for a Junior High English class only we used a dictionary. Fun fact: everyone in my family comes to me when they want to spell a word or know its definition. Guess it worked.

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    docforbin  almost 7 years ago

    Every year since 1982 my mother has given me a Word of the Day Calendar. It’s pretty interesting.

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    flagmichael  almost 7 years ago

    Choice of words is always a balance between precision and being understood. I let it slide when I hear somebody use “blatant” (which means loud) in place of “flagrant” (which means unabashed). I guess if’n it’s okey dokey with y’all, it’s copacetic with me.

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    Carl Rennhack Premium Member almost 7 years ago

    Is there a synonym for “thesaurus”?

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    GirlGeek Premium Member almost 7 years ago

    How can you expect the kids to improve their English if you don’t know the basic difference between “Each” and “Both”?

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    Linguist  almost 7 years ago

    My Roget’s and my Strunk & White, both well-worn from use, are my most beloved and essential writing companions.

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    Wren Fahel  almost 7 years ago

    I tend to talk to kids – including my own – like they actually have a brain. When my daughters were toddlers we had a bath game where I would ask them a question and, when they answered, I would wipe the answerer’s face with a facecloth, muffling what they say…then I would tell them, “Don’t mumble! You need to enunciate!” They loved this game. When my older daughter was in kindergarten, each child had to “bring a word from home” written on a piece of paper. While most kids brought words like, “cat”, “book”, or “bed”…she brought “enunciation”.

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    johnec  almost 7 years ago

    She wants them to learn lots of new words – but only the RIGHT new words!

    They would learn lots of new words watching late-night TV or going to R-rated movies!

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    johnec  almost 7 years ago

    Thesauruses went extinct even longer ago than dictionaries – but they both only found in the fossil records these days!

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    Seed_drill  almost 7 years ago

    We used to use the OED to find Middle English curse words.

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    tuslog1964  almost 7 years ago

    What is a synonym? A word you use if you can’t spell the first one!

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    Night-Gaunt49[Bozo is Boffo]  almost 7 years ago

    Lynn’s Notes:

    My mother did this. She bought my brother and I each a thesaurus and we were to learn a new word each day. Far from resenting this project, we enjoyed it. If you want to express yourself well, you need a vocabulary!

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    masnadies  almost 7 years ago

    The punch line is even more relevant these days. In fact, when this strip was initially out, we did use a thesaurus at school!

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    michael_ortiz  almost 7 years ago

    dank meme

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