Dictionary & Thesaurus

[Lady Chameleon]

Personally, I love using The Sage by Sequence Publishing. 

I just love this program and all the ways I can use it.  It comes in handy when you're looking for that certain word, but you can only think of a cheap approximation for it. 


Here's a screenshot of it:

[Cavebear]

Is using an outside source for "the right word" legitimate?  I worry about that myself sometimes.  I'm not saying it is right or wrong, just that I worry about using such sources personally.

[Isolde Devereaux]

Cbear. I would have to say yes, to the use of outside sources being legit, but if you are worried about it, then I would say to make mention of this source somewhere in your reference pages. In a fiction work, maybe mention it in your forward. This would keep it from feeling like plagiarism in your mind, maybe making the usage more ethical.

[Lady Chameleon]

All words have been used before.  If I was looking for a word that no one else has ever used, I'd soon be speaking and writing in my own language.  I don't use text of others (unless I'm quoting them) in my writing...but sometimes 'murdered' isn't a strong enough word; but with little look in a dictionary or thesaurus I could choose the word that is more fitting to MY uses.

for instance.....Murder (happens a LOT in my stories), but I don't want to always use that one word, it would be boring...so I may look it up to find something that fits my scene at that moment, and I'd find:

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/murder
abolish, asphyxiate, assassinate, behead, blot out, bump off, butcher, chill*, cool*, decapitate, defeat, destroy, dispatch, do in, drub, dust off, electrocute, eliminate, eradicate, execute, exterminate, extinguish, finish, garotte, guillotine, hang, hit*, knife, knock off, liquidate, lynch, mangle, mar, massacre, misuse, off*, put away, rub out, ruin, shoot, slaughter, slay, smother, snuff, spoil, strangle, take a life, take for a ride, take out*, thrash*, waste*

* = informal/non-formal usage

All of these can be used to express Murder to different degrees and in different situations. 
I distinctly remember teachers and mentors telling me that to NOT use these tools as a writer is to box myself into mediocrity....

I look at some of my 'pre-tool' use writing and it's HORRIBLE.  Same adjectives used over and over and in one...the word 'murder' is used 47 times.  Since then, I've edited it and have removed more than half the repeated use of 'murder' and, depending on the scene, used alternate words that expressed the type of murder (asphyxiated, riddled with bullets, pin cushion stabbing, to name just a few)

[Isolde Devereaux]

I agree with that Lady C. I try to use a different term for "murder"(example word only) in each post when writing in role play. The dictionary and Thesaurus are amazing tools in opening up a whole new world of description.