"Dad, what does epizeuxis mean?"
"Go look it up."
"Does that mean you don't know what it means, or are you trying to make me learn?"
"Go look it up."
I didn't mind looking words up in the dictionary—especially after Dad got his big dictionary. As a youngster, I thought that book was huge. It even came with a magnifying glass so you could read the tiny print.
Dad had that crazy dictionary because he liked words as much as I did. We had fun trying to stump each other with giant or obscure words. Decades later, we still play this game.
That is to say, I love big words.
Yet, I rarely use them. Look at the sentences above. The only word anyone over the age of 8ish would need to look up is epizeuxis. (Epizeuxis is a figure of speech when you use the same word together without something separating it.)
Why deny myself big words?
(Big words are sesquipedalian words, by the way.)
➤ The goal of writing and speaking is to share ideas.
➤ Making people look up words reduces comprehension.
➤ Lots of big words can make you seem pompous.
➤ Lots of big words can make your reader/listener feel dumb.
That said, I appreciate novels that make me look up a few words.