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.

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes these folks are from a low-income background and I think they think that big words make them sound educated. And they don't have the confidence to use simple words because they're afraid people will judge them - which they might.

Growing up in a professional upper middle class home gives you the freedom to not use big words.

That's a ridiculous statement. I agree that growing up in that environment might give you the self confidence not to try too hard and to prove yourself all the time, but it also can provide the kind of education that leads to a big, useful, precise, nuanced vocabulary where you can use "big" words properly without thinking too much about it. I can't stand it when we dumb down the culture, or politics, or anything else and act like that's a virtue. We teach our kids more than 100 words for a reason. Sounding thoughtful and well educated ( or even just sounding like someone who loves vocabulary instead so sports or fashion or anything else) shouldn't be equated with pretention or insecurity.

Anonymous wrote:If people use them correctly, who cares? When did the memo circulate that we must all use the exact same manner of speech?

I'm especially giving you the side-eye, tacky "my upper middle class upbringing freed me from having to use big words" poster. My, those vocabulary shackles! How they chafe the skins of the unworthy! Oh, pardon! "Goddamn it! Big words scrape the skins of the poors!"

I detest imprecise speech.

+1

Anonymous wrote:I think my interlocutor is a reader. Nothing more. Unless they're using it wrong. Then I think they're a blowhard.

Interlocutor is one of my favorites.

They read a lot.

Anonymous wrote:My favorite high-dollar words:

flatulant
matriculate
ancillary
prophylactically

also

plethora
fungible
pulchritude
crepuscular

Steve, how can you be so coitaly humorous?

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.

Ladies and Gentlemen, STEVE MARTIN!!!!!!!!

I think my interlocutor is a reader. Nothing more. Unless they're using it wrong. Then I think they're a blowhard.

If people use them correctly, who cares? When did the memo circulate that we must all use the exact same manner of speech?

I'm especially giving you the side-eye, tacky "my upper middle class upbringing freed me from having to use big words" poster. My, those vocabulary shackles! How they chafe the skins of the unworthy! Oh, pardon! "Goddamn it! Big words scrape the skins of the poors!"

I detest imprecise speech.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are bloviating.

I LOVE that word!

I admit I had to look this one up. Great word.

+1

Anonymous wrote:My favorite high-dollar words:

flatulant
matriculate
ancillary
prophylactically

Love it.

High dollar words that people just don't understand and will get you into trouble:

niggardly
prophylactic
catholic (small c)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fortuitously, I don't spend a copious amount of time with non-erudite people.

Seriously, is that the best you can do? Jk.

Lamentably, yes.

The Simpsonian reference warms my heart. Is Simpsonian a 75 cent word? Seems ironic, in the true dictionary sense, not the Morrisettian sense.

My favorite high-dollar words:

flatulant
matriculate
ancillary
prophylactically