You said: “When faced with a choice between using a perfect word or dumbing it down – use the perfect word. That’s how language stays alive and vibrant.”

What if the “perfect word” alienates your audience? What if your audience has no idea what you’re talking about and has no interest in looking up what you just said? If your point is lost using that word, is it still perfect?

I was talking with my cousin recently. He finally said to me, “You know, Keri, you’re a really cool person, but your vocabulary’s an asshole.” He said it in an affectionate way (as much as one can say that word in an affectionate way), but it was a good lesson. Know your audience. What may be the perfect word to me may not be so perfect to the recipient.