Thesaurus has many different meanings. In most homes or businesses it is used to improve vocabulary and add clarity to grammar. It is literally the bibliophile’s bible. In the world of information science, a thesaurus is also a controlled vocabulary. Since many thesauri are hierarchical, they may be referred to as taxonomies. A thesaurus focuses on concepts. It doesn’t focus on the information object itself.
A taxonomy and thesaurus are often used interchangeably. Many times users start with categorization and taxonomy grow into a thesaurus as they add related terms over the years and figure out the relationships. New terms are discovered, new words are formed, and new meanings are discovered.
This piece of humor caught my eye and regardless of how you use the thesaurus, it should make you smile. It was brought to us by Reader’s Digest in their article, “13 Hilarious Examples of How Not to Use a Thesaurus.”
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
