Showing off your vocabulary in articles...yay or nay?

As I always say, eschew obfuscation. ???

 

Nay.

 

[quote author=doctorquant]
I think we're all capable of recognizing that there's a mutatis mutandis facet to pretty much any analogy being made 'round here.

If you wanna go all reductio here, I can play that game, too.
[/quote]

 

I'm not sure ... does mutatis mutandis have something to do with mutilation?

 

I think he was one of the bad guys in "Shaft's Big Score."

 

I try to gird myself at all times for unseen hazards.

 

To cross thread, how many Howard Cosell words does Olney use in DD's thread?

How many Cosell words are used by Riley when he was in his prime?

Grand vocabulary might make you seem truculent.

 

Agreed - for newspaper. Otherwise, pursue magazine work or write a book if you want to show off.

 

Don't use a word if you don't know what it means.

 

The ones who do that think it's all about them. It's not.

There are a lot of studies out there that show simplified readability attracts more readers than the linguistic gymnasts do.

Journalism is NOT about "writing." First and foremost, it's about informing - we should use language that allows us to inform the most people in the most effective way. From the lowest common denominator up.

 

But a person who writes "ostensibly" isn't sitting there thinking, How can I impress people? It's just the word that pops into his head as he is writing.

There may be some line where what you're saying comes into play. I remember reading "suzerainty" in a George Will column, in one of my first exposures to him, and thinking "What a knob." But the words in the OP, and most of the words that tend to bring out these discussions, are way below the bar. I'd doubt anyone is going to a thesaurus for a word like that.

 

Whatever you do, don't use niggardly.