unless you derive some sort of twisted enjoyment from sending people scuttling for the dictionary everytime you drop one of these words into writing.

I had a friend during high school who had an enormous vocabulary of such obscure words, and he would use them in essays (correctly, too). Now, you’ve heard that in school the teacher will spend only 3 minutes marking each essay? He thought, “On my essay, he’ll take longer, since he’ll have to open the dictionary… etc.”. Not true. They simply ignore the words they don’t know, and if you fail to get your point across, you lose marks.

In real life, too, noone will look up words they don’t know in the dictionary. If you can’t get your point across clearly, then it’s your problem, not the reader’s. It’s very naive to think that if you start using these words, you will send anyone scuttling for anything.

So, unless there’s a particular reason to learn them (eg. you frequently encounter them yourself and need to understand them, or you are doing some Arts or Linguistics subject that requires you to learn obscure words, etc), why bother? They’re certainly useless for communicating with other people, the bulk of whom won’t have a clue what they mean.

Mate, can you include the definitions for those words in a posting (if available)?

I would like to know what the words mean, but couldn’t be bothered looking them up.

i’ve heard of t the words…

Curiousity: Searching definitions is only a couple of mouseclicks away. Do a google search of definition: <your word> and you’ll be able to pull it up quickly for the words you don’t know.

Bonhomme: That depends on how apathetic the person is, how available a dictionary is, and how critical the word is to understanding the surrounding paragraph.

Hi Stu,

This reminds me that in your “About” piece, you refer to “isogesis”, being the art of reading into a text things that aren’t there. The word’s spelling is actually “eisegesis”, and while it can mean what you say it does, it’s primarily a Biblical term… isn’t that fascinating? No, I know it’s not, but just in case you want to correct the spelling I thought I’d mention it!

Hi Jamie,

That’s interesting, never seen that spelling before. Actually, the way I came across that word (and the incorrect spelling) was via Mr Blaskow’s english classes. He pulled that word out of nowhere when we were interpreting poetry. But yes, it is often used in the context of Biblical interpretation.

Hi Jamie. Let me congratulate you on your project. English is a wonderful language and most of the terms shown at the top of this screen are, or should be, well within the vocabulary of anyone who wishes to be seen as being educated.

One comment here about speaking over the head of your audience is worth noting. In a situation that requires immediate comprehension and action, the more rudimentary the vocabulary, the better. Otherwise, you do your audience a disservice if you assume that the normal scope of the language is beyond them.

I note that you have listed vituperous. While it does enjoy some usage, most authorities consider it to be substandard. I suspect that it is suggested by the obscure vituperious, meaing blameworthy. You will do better with vituperative.

Best wishes to you and all.

Using fifty cent words in essays is great sport. Here’s one for you: jeofail. I must say, eisegesis had me stumped, too; since I couldn’t find either it nor isogesis in my abridged Oxford dictionary, nor in the indices of several Bible commentaries.

Eisegesis at dictionary.com – one hit.