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Poets and rhyming dictionaries

edited June 2012 in - Resources
Do any of you regularly use a 'rhyming' dictionary? - I am considering whether I would find one useful and would welcome your comments. I have an online rhyming words resource that I use but I generally enjoy real live books for reference purposes.

Comments

  • They can take your mind off in different directions - I love them.

    I use Chambers but they've just discontinued it. It is the best. i use it almost every day. It wears out in a year. Very irritating.

    Collins is next best, but not as easy to use.

    Penguin is RUBBISH. Hardly any rhymes.
  • I use one now and then, mine is Chambers. I find it really helpful.
  • I have used Rhymezone. www.rhymezone.com
  • I use one - love it - as Liz says, once you dip in it gives you other ideas and helps you move your poem on. Mine is published by Penguin.
  • rhymezone is the online resource I use BD.
    Liz!, kateyanne and Betsie - yes, you have confirmed that I need my own pet rhyming dictionary, I love books that you can dip into and find yourself transported off to all those little planets and tangents of ideas that somehow seem to bounce and deflect and expand from each other. Thanks all, I shall put one on my 'wish list'
  • I use the Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes.
    Very nice to use.
  • I used to use them a few years ago when I started writing songs. Now I wouldn't dream of using one, I just think if you can't think of it then it ain't the right word
  • Rhyming dictionary's a great idea

    Though I never seem to have one near

    I'm sure if I could

    My rhymes'd be good

    Not rubbish like this, it's quite clear.
  • [quote=BuickMackane]Now I wouldn't dream of using one, I just think if you can't think of it then it ain't the right word[/quote]

    What a load of rubbish.
  • [quote=Liz!]What a load of rubbish. [/quote]
    The words should come with what you're feeling. If you go looking in a dictionary it's superficial
  • Well, my poems have been called precise... and the first word that occurs to you is not always the right one. Nothing in life is that simple.

    Feelings can be expressed in a myriad of ways, if they couldn't there'd only be one poem. Are you suggesting a poem would be 'superficial' if an alternative, just as good, maybe even better word was used, simply because it hadn't been thought of first by the poet? If that is the case, forget editing, you might as well just throw any poem that isn't perfect in the bin straight away.

    I often think of a word, then have look in a dictionary and find a better one which I hadn't thought of. If you are so arrogant as to think your vocabulary is that massive, that precise, always that accurate, always comes up with the best first thing, then your writing will suffer. If you are writing poetry, that is. With poetry every word counts so much that it has to be absolutely the right one, and maybe even a word that conveys more than one thing. You might want a word that means the same - but that has an initial letter or inner letters that suit the sound of your poem. Nothing is lost by having a look, you might stick with what you have. But if you don't look, you'll never know.
  • 10/10 for that Liz.

    Very nice poem dora.
  • edited June 2012
    Do you use a thesaurus, BM?

    Mind you, I have to admit I often don't find anything better/more suitable than the word I've put in the first place.
  • BuickMackane you can't always think of the right word and maybe there is a word that you knew but had forgotten or one you didn't know and perhaps it sums up your feelings in a better way. Also reading words around the one you originally looked at can trigger a whole new poem! I use my Thesaurus more than a rhyming dictionary though, to help with my poems.Ted Hughes said Sylvia Plath was always consulting her Thesaurus, trying to find just the right word to use in her poems.
  • A thesaurus is essential for a writer.
  • edited June 2012
    [quote=BuickMackane]Now I wouldn't dream of using one, I just think if you can't think of it then it ain't the right word
    [/quote]

    Have to disagree with you BM - when one's brain becomes aged like mine you're glad of a few prompts - you really do lose words as you get older - I'm sure you'll discover this for yourself one day. You don't lose them completely but it takes longer to winkle them out from the depths of addled grey matter.
  • edited June 2012
    You won't expand your vocabulary if you ignore dictionaries and er ... thesauruses/thesauri.

    And we have active and passive vocabularies.
  • [quote=Betsie] but it takes longer to winkle them out from the depths of addled grey matter.
    [/quote]

    I'm sooo glad it's not just me having to winkle out words ;-) I love dictionaries (and will sit and read one if denied other reading matter) so have two plus a thesaurus at home and one of each (plus medical ones) at work. My rhyming dictionary is the back half of Frances Stillman's 'The Poet's Manual and Rhyming Dictionary' - bit old fashioned as it was first published in 1966, but suits me and the manual bit comes in handy if I need to write something to a set form.
  • I don't ignore dictionaries, if I read something where there's a word I don't know I'll look in the dictionary.
    I don't read a thesaurus, Jay, in fact only very occaisionally, when writing non-creative things.
    I never said the first word is always the best, I said any word you can think of.
    As for personal vocabulary, your vocabulary tends to match your feelings at the time, I find, and you think of words you didn't know you knew. For me anyway
    You may disagree, of course, but I work by this viewpoint because it has served me pretty well
  • Stick with what works for you, Buick. Your poems are being published; you must be doing something right!
  • Who said Penguin was rubbish. I have one that has 40,000 rhyming words. How many do you want????????????????
  • You may find this interesting:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_vocabulary
  • LizLiz
    edited June 2012
    The Oxford I have has 85,000.

    But the thing is, you are looking in the dictionary for ONE word. It just has to be there.

    By rubbish, I mean ease of use.
  • I have a Bloomsbury one and had to dig it out to find what it was - I gave up on it as I could usually think of ones it didn't have and cringe at some of the ones it does have.
  • I love my rhyming dictionary. I always use it when I am stuck. I agree that a better word can often pop out. I wouldn't be without my thesaurus and 'Synonyms and Antonyms' either. They certainly refresh and expand my vocabulary and help me out when I am struggling to bring a word out of my murky recesses and into the forefront again. I don't use online resources as much.
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