Bob's Angry Rants

Here�s a time waster for all of you out there in cubicle land. There�s a little game that I like to play with MS Word�s thesaurus on occasion. Basically, you take any word, and try to get to its antonym through a chain of synonyms. You can change the meaning of the word (for example, in Word, evil has different sets of synonyms depending on whether you use it to mean �foul� or �wicked�), but not the form of the word itself (for example, changing revolting to revolt, which Word lists as a �related word� would be cheating). The great thing about this game is that it really looks like you are working when you are playing it, since you�re using your word processing program.

Here�s how I got from �evil� to �good.�

Evil

Revolting

Horrid

Unspeakable

Unbelievable

Great

Good

Obviously, the key word here was �unspeakable� which has both positive and negative meanings.

Any computer thesaurus will do the trick. I used to play using Word Perfect, which was much easier than MS Word (it had a more broad list of synonyms). Typically, the more abstract the concept, the easier it is to do. Here�s a challenge, if you are interested: I got from �cold� to �hot� in 4 steps and from �light� to �dark� in 3.. Fun, geeky fun!