Roget

The Player brought many books to our little home when he arrived with Boo Radley the cat last week.  One of the books is now J-dude's favorite item in the entire universe...Roget's Thesaurus.  I have owned a thesaurus for J-dude's entire life but it was not something he discovered.  Nor is it as good as The Player's thesaurus.  Note difference in photo below:

That would be The Player's robust thesaurus on the left and my old sad pathetic version on the right.  The new thesaurus even advertises how much better it is: 

So why the charm of the thesaurus for a 10 year old kid?  He discovered you can look up words like idiot and then read "loon or loony or nut or crackpot or screwball or weirdie or weirdo or kook or flake or crackbrain (all slang). "  And there is one thing 10 year old kids love, it is slang.  

So last night after book group I realized that I had been somewhat curmudgeonly about the book.  I decided to look up curmudgeon in Roget's.  And to my surprise it was NOT in the index.  So I resorted to my old faithful Big Red...which said a curmudgeon is irascible.  Irascible is in the index of the new and improved and revised Roget's.  And it reads:  irritable, cranky, excitable, cross, cranky, testy, feisty, crusty, huffy, huffish, shirty, cantakerous, cankered, crabbed, spiteful, spleeny,...well you get the idea.  So I don't think I was really all that.  Just enthusiastic in my criticism.  Yes, that's it.  I was enthusiastic.  And maybe a little irritable.  I am committed to loving the next book no matter what.  I don't want to be a curmudgeon.