How can a person find the exact word to fit his or her meaning ? - - Now there is an unusual book that tutors you to select virtually any action word in the language. This "Reverse-Dictionary" makes you a master of the English language. It differentiates every process word uniquely. For example, what's the difference between ESCORTING and CHAPERONING? -That's the kind of problem solved in a new kind of vocabulary-building product. (Answer: To ESCORTING, CHAPERONING adds the idea of bestowing respectability.)

This is The Wordtree (r). It is the world's only full-language, two-way dictionary. First, it points from a word to its meaning (as does the normal dictionary). Secondly, it is a reverse dictionary: That is, a system directs you a mere meaning or part-meaning to the word best expressing it. This arrangement enables the classification of procedural knowledge, and thereby a gradability of words from simplest actions (such as to EQUAL) toward complex concepts (such as to BAPTIZE). Such codification enables wordsmiths and computational humanists to pinpoint concepts and to trace ideas, step by step. The system begins with any concept for which the user seeks the exact term. It directs you, one step at a time, toward the more complex idea (or the other direction, toward simpler, when you want that). The new kind of reference work is an add-on listing that branches backward toward causes and forward toward effects. For instance, to FUEL and to NOURISH = to FEED.

The ordinary alphabetic dictionary requires the user to know the word he wants before he can look it up. Not so with the reverse dictionary, which connects ideas regardless of how spelled. It has been a goal of communicators at least since the Hittite civilization of 1400 B.C. But it has been solved only with the arrival of high-speed computers.

How does the conceptual dictionary help you home-in on the precise term? - The system cross-references each verb, so that on the N pages, you would see, NOURISH upon FUELING = to FEED. And, one step further, to FEED & REGULATE = to DIET.

No two verbs mean exactly the same thing. Therefore, at FASTEN, as another example, the reader sees precise differentiations (nuances) between RACKING, NAILING, BRADDING, WEDGING, SUTURING, etc. This computer-generated arrangement of a quarter-million word listings reveals all the solutions that the culture has recognized for solving any physical or social problem.

Only The Wordtree tries to list all the process-words in the language. Therefore only this plan can systematically direct the user from any fragment of an idea to each next more advanced concept. This approach conjoins all the different disciplines. A foreword in the book by the President of the American Anthropological Association calls Burger's system "a monumental conception .... If ever hard science and sociocultural, humanistic science come to join together, ... it will be in great part traceable to the pioneering he has carried out...."

Other reverse dictionaries have a far smaller listing. Typically they show merely common equivalents. For instance, they would simply list (on the "H pages) "Heart specialist = Cardiologist."

The Wordtree becomes a quick means to tell English-speakers and English-learners how to filter through the language's 25,000 impactive ("transitive") verbs to find the precise meaning. The user quickly learns the essential elements of such subtle actions as PRODUCTIZING a service into a kit, IMF'ing the wasteful Smart Set of a Third World nation, and GIACOBAZZIING one's companion.

The discovery is especially helpful for: Authors. Journalists. Copywriters. Technical writers. English-learning foreigners. Programmers. Science-fictioneers. Word gamesters. Crossword puzzlers. Natural scientists. Linguists. Computational linguists. Artificial intelligencia. Social scientists. Inter-disciplinarians. Multi-national corporations. Translators. Engineers. Engineering specification writers. Inventors. Lawyers, especially Patent attorneys. Social engineers. Public relaters. Advertisers. Therapists (for wordplay). Systematizers. Cataloguers. Librarians (academic, technical, & public). Instructors in any of these fields. Students in any of these fields.

Statistics: Has 381 pages each 21.5 x 29 cm. (=8-1/2 by 11 inch) oversized, quintuple-content pages on acid-neutral paper. With miniaturized type readable by the naked eye, providing a word content equivalent to a book of 1,800 pages. Includes 90,000 words of instruction and references cited, one halftone illustration, prose index, roster of multiple citation sources, word-listing hierarchy, word-listing index. Library of Congress "Cataloguing in Publication." Impactive (transitive) verbs: 20,484. Entries: A quarter-million. First edition, first published in and copyright MCMLXXXIV. In print. The book contains 30% more transitive morphemes than in the world's largest dictionary, which requires some 15 volumes of oversized-pages. Yet because The Wordtree defines additively, it requires only 380 oversized pages! The compilation program involves 5,000 computer steps. It is being used for research toward possible future editions. The phrase, The Wordtree, and the "tree-man" logo, are trademark-registered and copyrighted.

Warranty: Every copy against physical defects, FOB publisher. Additional warranty: If the book substantially fails this description or that in our 4-page list of features, return in mint condition within 30 days and receive full refund.

A brochure on solving problems by wording them is available free from the publisher.