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Linguistic evidence
The compilers of
NOTE
have had access to two major linguistic resources, the
British National Corpus and the files of the Oxford Reading Programme. The British
National Corpus is a body of 100 million words of English books, newspapers, and
transcribed speech in machine-readable form, used for linguistic and lexicographi-
cal research. The Oxford Reading Programme is a database of citations collected
by Oxford's international network of readers, currently amounting to over 77 million
words and increasing by about 7 million words every year.
In both these resources, the context of every occurrence of a given word can be
viewed in a few seconds, making it possible to see more clearly than ever before
how words are actually used. This method was used not only to confirm whether a
word has senses for which there are suitable synonyms and to check the sense of
words being selected as synonyms but also to actively find synonyms which have
not previously been recorded. The British National Corpus, in particular, was also
used to obtain the sentences and phrases given as examples of usage.
Phrasal verbs and idiomatic phrases
English is full of idiomatic expressions-phrases whose meaning is more than the
sum of their parts. For example,
a shot in the dark
means 'a guess', while
a shot in
the arm
means 'a boost'. Neither of these meanings has very much to do with more
literal meanings of
shot
. In this thesaurus, particular care has been given to make a
full selection of idiomatic expressions and to give synonyms for them. If a word is
used as both a noun and a verb, the idiomatic expressions are listed as subentries
under the part of speech in which the word is used. Thus
by the book
is given under
the noun senses of
book
, while
book in
is given under the verb senses.
Full coverage is also given to phrasal verbs in this thesaurus. Phrasal verbs are
expressions such as
book in
and
turn out
, consisting of a verb plus a particle. The
meaning of a phrasal verb is often very different from that of the basic verb; for
example, the meanings of
take off
are quite distinct from the meanings of
take
.
Phrasal verbs are listed as idiomatic expressions under the main verb entry.
Register: standard vs informal and regional English
Informal usage is more prevalent than it was a few years ago. Even in quite formal
contexts, people may be heard using slang expressions, while the use of swear
words and taboo words is on the increase. Taboos generally are weakening, though
more so in Australia, where
bastard
is almost equivalent to British
chap
, and less so
in the USA, where taboos are still strong in southern States such as Texas. This
thesaurus contains a rich selection of informal and rude synonyms for more formal
expressions. Users who wish to avoid offensive words may treat the restrictive
labels as warning notices.
Most of the synonyms given are, of course, part of standard English; that is, they
are in normal use in both speech and writing everywhere in the world, at many
different levels of formality, ranging from official documents to casual conversation.
These general synonyms are given first in each synonym set. Some words,
however, are appropriate only in particular contexts, and these are placed after the
standard expressions and labelled accordingly. The technical term for these
differences in levels of usage is 'register'. The main register labels used in this
thesaurus are the following:
informal: normally only used in contexts such as conversations or letters
between friends, e.g.
swig
as a synonym for
drink
.
vulgar slang: informal language that may cause offence, usually because it refers
to bodily functions.
formal: normally only used in writing, in contexts such as official
documents, e.g.
dwelling
as a synonym for
home
.
technical: normally only used in technical and specialist language, though not
necessarily restricted to any specific field, e.g.
littoral
as a synonym
for
beach
. Words used in specific fields are given appropriate
labels, e.g.
medicine
,
Christianity
.
poetic/literary:found only or mainly in poetry or in literature written in an 'elevated'
style, e.g.
ambrosial
as a synonym for
delicious
.
dated: still used, but normally only by the older generation, e.g.
measure
one's length
as a synonym
for fall down
.