Semantic distance is increasingly used for automated scoring of originality on divergent thinking tasks, such as the Alternate Uses Task (AUT). Despite some psychometric support for semantic distance -- including positive correlations with human creativity ratings -- additional work is needed to optimize its reliability and validity, including identifying maximally reliable items (objects) for AUT administration. We identify a set of 13 AUT items based on a systematic item-selection strategy ("belt," "brick," "broom," "bucket," "candle," "clock," "comb," "knife," "lamp," "pencil," "pillow," "purse," "sock"). This item-set resulted in acceptable reliability estimates and was found to be moderately related to both human creativity ratings and a creative personality factor (Study 1). These results replicated in a new sample of Participants (Study 2). We conclude with the following recommendations for reliable and valid assessment of AUT originality using semantic distance: 1) make choices based on theoretical/practical considerations, 2) administer (some or all of) the 13 items from this study; 3) if other items must be used, avoid compound words as AUT items (e.g., guitar string); 4) include as many AUT items as time permits; 5) instruct participants to "be creative"; and 6) address fluency confounds that conflate idea quantity and quality (e.g., via max scoring).