> If you have a good vocabulary (and sometimes, worse still, if you have not), the temptation is to spurn the obvious word in favour of a high-falutin synonym. So edifice displaces building, for example, and to insinuate displaces to suggest. This habit is fine in moderation, and in the right company. But it soon begins to smack of showing off.
>
> In everyday speaking and writing, you are hardly likely to refer to a well-dressed barber, say, as a tonsorial artist in full sartorial splendour (except in jest). But the chances are that you do occasionally succumb to the temptation of a 'fancy' synonym - saying apropos when you just mean about, or using an archaism such as erstwhile or whence, or writing expedite in a business later instead of speed up or help.
> --Reader's Digest: How to Write and Speak Better
A tonsorial artist in full sartorial splendor!
Anonymous
Hah!
Anonymous
I don't always use the words I should. I'm aware that I'm not a very good writer, but I use that awareness to try to focus on things like word choice and improve over time :-)
Anonymous
I think edifice and insinuate can both be The Right Word sometimes.
Anonymous
Neither is merely a "high-falutin synonym" of the other words they list.
Anonymous
> I suggested we go out for lunch, and he agreed. > # I insinuated we go out for lunch, and he agreed.
The main other thing is that if you don't have a lot of experience using a language, you are unlikely to know the connotations that a word... connotes, even if you know what the word means.
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Language Overflow