using unusual, complicated words

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My favorite high-dollar words:

flatulant
matriculate
ancillary
prophylactically

also

plethora
fungible
pulchritude
crepuscular

I've long loved crepuscular. Deer are crepuscular.

[Anonymous]

Hermit crabs are crepuscular, too. It's one thing that makes them great pets for kids! They can play with them in the AM before school, and then when they come home before dinner. Love those crepuscular pets. Not like hamsters who seem to wake up at night.

[Anonymous]

What do you think when a person uses unusual, complicated words when a much simpler way of saying the same thing is easily available?

I appreciate that the person I'm speaking with appreciates language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As my grandmother used to say,

Be courteous, kind and forgiving,
Be gentle and peaceful each day,
Be warm and human and grateful,
And have a good thing to say.

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,
Be witty and happy and wise,
Be honest and love all your neighbors,
Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,
Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,
Criticize things you don't know about,
Be oblong and have your knees removed.

Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,
Live in a swamp and be three dimensional,
Put a live chicken in your underwear,
Get all excited and go to a yawning festival.

WTF?? This was hilariously weird.

This was part of Steve Martin's stand-up in his early days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
plethora
fungible
pulchritude
crepuscular

I love the word "plethora". In high school, we had to use the term in a sentence and the guy in front of me leaned over to another guy and whispered, "a plethora of pussy". Even when dementia hits, I think I will be able to recall the meaning of plethora.

Could also be applied to two of PPs other favorite words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do the lawyer posters speak differently to fellow attorneys and judges than they do to the jury?

For the love of God will someone -- erudite or not -- please tell everone that a lawyer is not the same as an attorney. Anyone can be an attorney. That means you are acting on behalf of someone else at their direction. For example, if you have a power of attorney from your DH to handle the sale of a home, you are his attorney-in fact. Only a lawyer who is licensed as a lawyer can be a lawyer. I think peole often use the word "attorney" instead of lawyer because it sounds more authoratative. Actually, folks, it's the other way round.

I had to get that off my chest and have of intention of highjacking this excellent thread.

For the second time today, I'll point out that your local committee on unauthorized practice of law would take exception to that. The term attorney indicates that you're authorized to practice law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I adore the words philistine, anathema, and nadir. They express concepts that you would have to use multiple other words to convey.

Anathema is the name of a character in one of my favorite books. I would have named DD that if it weren't for my DW, and, well, the actual meaning of the word.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you think when a person uses unusual, complicated words when a much simpler way of saying the same thing is easily available?

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.
William F. Buckley, Jr.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've long loved crepuscular. Deer are crepuscular.

Love it! When my young son and I passed a deer this weekend in Rock Creek Park, we had a whole discussion about how deer are crepuscular and why that makes sense for them. We first learned that word on Dinosaur Train!