Your Free Cool Word of the Day

By way of copywriter Robert Roth’s blog, I found a link to Visual Thesaurus. Oooooh, a fun tool for a person like me who likes to play with words. Choosing words is a bit like trying on shoes. They are mood-dependent, fun when colorful, flexible to a point, and ideal if they fit.

So, here’s how the Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus works. You type in a word, any word, and then the Visual Thesaurus reveals to you a dynamic schematic showing a collection of words related to your word. Quick… what’s the first word that comes to your mind?

Cool. I typed in “cool” and pressed “look it up.” Within a few seconds, my “cool” diagram of words appeared displaying the usual temperature-related terms, as well as: fashionable, stylish, aplomb, assuredness, poise, and my new favorite word sangfroid (pronounced: sahn-FWAH). Sangfroid is an English term borrowed from our French friends; sang meaning “blood” and froid meaning “cold”. Although the direct translation is “cold-blooded,” sangfroid is not a synonym. Sangfroid is defined as “coolness or composure in the face of difficulty or danger.” Like, I try to keep my sangfroid when…

I continued to play with the words in my diagram and accidentally did a repeat search for cool. Whoa. Visual Thesaurus just completed my last free search. An individual annual subscription is priced at… does that say $19.95? Not cool. I must keep my sangfroid when asked to pay for something I expected for free. Talk is cheap. But words, dear readers, are not.


Technorati Tags: sangfroid, word of the day, Visual Thesaurus, Robert Roth, cool, cool people, stephanie roberts