ShmoopTube

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[Coop and Dino singing]

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Let's play pretend real quick.

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It’ll be fun, we promise. [Boy standing in bedroom]

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C'mon, we're wearing a fake mustache and everything, don't leave us hanging. [woman appears at boys window with fake mustache]

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Let’s say someone asks you what the word “delicious” means.

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You might be tempted to say, “well, delicious is what you call food that’s...

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I don’t know, delicious.”

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But that wouldn't be very helpful for someone who doesn’t know what the word delicious means.

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So you might try to use different words that mean more or less the same thing. [Girl brings out BBQ food to boys]

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You might say that delicious means “tasty” or “enjoyable” or “scrumptious.”

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And that, friends, pals, buddies, and comrades…is what synonyms are all about.

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See what we did there?

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So what is a synonym? [Coop explaining what a synonym is]

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Well, synonyms are words that are different, but have the same, or very similar meanings.

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They’re super useful for when you want to talk about the same topics and ideas over

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and over again without constantly repeating yourself.

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Take this scenario, for instance: let's say you just saw your friend's play and you thought

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it was hilarious.

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You might tell them that you found it, well, hilarious.

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But then what if your other friend came up to you and also asked what you thought? [Girl friend approaches man]

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It might sound a bit odd to use the exact same word again, right?

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So maybe you'd say it was funny…

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Or amusing…

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Or side-splitting.

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Yup.

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They're all synonyms, because they all basically mean, "funny."

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Using synonyms is a great way to add description and variety to both your day-to-day speech [Coop discussing what synonyms are useful for]

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and your writing.

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Let's say you want to write an advertisement for your garage sale.

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You could just use the first word that comes to mind and say that the garage sale will

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be “great.”

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But maybe you want to sound more interesting than that.

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So what do you do?

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Grab your handy-dandy thesaurus, of course. [Thesaurus book appears]

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A thesaurus is a book that lists all of the synonyms that a word has so that you can find

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the best one possible.

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Flip to the word you initially came up with and see what synonyms are listed. [Pages in thesaurus flick by]

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In the case of “great” we have...

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Brilliant, excellent, outstanding, and superb.

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Choose your favorite and suddenly our garage sale advertisement went from great to OUTSTANDING. [Garage sale advertisement]

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All because of the power of synonyms.

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Now your old toys will be selling like hot cakes!

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…That’s a synonym for pancakes. [Woman holding plate of pancakes]

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… Whatever, we just really like synonyms...

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