[7]
I know that some speakers
make a practice of learning lists of synonyms by
heart, in order that one word out of the several
available may at once present itself to them, and
that if, after using one word, they find that it is
wanted again after a brief interval, they may be
able to select another word with the same meaning
and so avoid the necessity of repetition. But this
practice is childish and involves thankless labour,
while it is really of very little use, as it merely
results in the assembly of a disorderly crowd of
words, for the speaker to snatch the first that comes
to hand.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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