There’s so many words. Sooo many. I come across words I’m not 100% sure of the meaning of every day. It’s kind of pathetic — I pick up a book, I read a few lines, then I have to put down the book in order to look up a word or phrase I wasn’t sure of.

I mean, sure, I might’ve heard these words before, but I can’t rely solely on context clues to define words I might have to use when I write. Guesswork could end up making me look like a total idiot.

Some words are just silly — words that end up making the author sound stupid, like he’s trying too hard to sound scholarly, or like he’s exploiting the built-in thesaurus feature in Microsoft Word. Fortunately, I can tell the difference, and I can do without those. Read the rest of this entry »