Perhaps the best approach is to assign students the task of learning more colorful words before they begin to write. Unfortunately, those are the same students most likely to stumble when deciding whether the word maul, presented on Shelton's list of 'Verbs for Movement/Fast,' might be a fitting substitute for run. It's the students whose vocabularies are more limited whom these lists serve. Shelton described her 'best writers' as students who are 'avid readers' and whose parents are articulate themselves. She reminded listeners that her lists are designed for students who recognize the words on them but 'just can't retrieve them.' Her lists, and even the stringent requirement that her students avoid 'dead words,' is designed to prod them into better writing. More often than not, students will choose synonyms that 'sound cool,' but don't fit the context they're using them in, a phenomenon writer James Harbeck has dubbed ' synonym-itis' (also called 'thesaurus flipping').ĭefending the 'dead words' approach on Southern California Public Radio, Banish Boring Words author Leilen Shelton outlined a distinction between the practice of thesaurus-flipping and the lexical expansion the lists in her book offer. Editor Julia Rubiner explains this idea fully here, and Georgia Scurletis, director of curriculum development, also discusses the debate over this little word in the context of student writing.īut swapping out said isn't the only problem created by the elimination of 'dead words.' When presented with lists of synonyms, student usage errors become an issue. One Journal reader suggesting a new substitution: 'You cannot say 'said,' the instructor nitwitted.' And to many, avoiding symptoms of say and said is the sign of good writing, not bad. Replacing the word said with 'colorful' or 'lively' synonyms is a ubiquitous symptom of bad writing. On Slate, Gabriel Roth warned that a 'reasonable pedagogical technique' he recalled from his own elementary school education had morphed into 'perverse and deadly totalitarianism,' writing in particular about the classification of said as a 'dead word.'Īnyone who has ever had to read a slush pile or a self-published autobiography will thunder, cry, retort, rejoin, or fume: No.

Hagerty profiled teachers who are deducting from students' grades if they spot so much as one offending 'dead word,' encouraging students to swap in more colorful language provided by middle school English teacher Leilen Shelton's best-selling Banish Boring Words in their stead. Hagerty poked gentle fun at the 'dead words' movement that urges teachers to strike overused words such as good, bad, nice, and said from student writing. Note: A word can have multiple synonyms that mean many words have similar meanings and can be used interchangeably.Writing for the Wall Street Journal last week, James R. Therefore, option E is also an incorrect option. This is also not similar in meaning to the word rejoice. Lighten means to reduce the weight or burden of someone or something. Therefore, option D can be a possible answer. This means that delight is similar in meaning to the word rejoice and they both are synonyms.

This represents the state of pleasure and jolliness. The word delight means to be happy and cheerful. This word is nowhere related to the word rejoice and therefore it cannot be the synonym of the word rejoice. Rename means to give a different name to someone or something that already has a name. This word is also not related or similar to the word rejoice as it does not mean happiness. But this is not similar to the word Rejoice. This can be used in the context of a place, group, job and others. Therefore, its synonym will also have a similar meaning.Īnalyzing the given options, we can identify the appropriate synonym for the given word. This is related to an act of joy or pleasure.

Rejoin synonym