Yeah, but what does it do?

I had this conversation once while sub teaching junior high English. I was appalled, horrified, shocked, dismayed, distressed, outraged and scandalized that 8th graders did not know what a thesaurus was let alone had never used one.  I brought my well-used personal copy the next day and realized they were pulling my leg. It was on the school computers they were using. I'm a dinosaurus.