Pete's Log: followup
Entry #1192, (Books, Writing, n such)(posted when I was 23 years old.)
I've been thinking about it some more. It seems I've gone word crazy.
For the most part, it is entirely possible to convey information clearly and concisely without the use of fancy words. In fact, fancy words often get in the way of the efficient transfer of information. And in addition to potentially frustrating the reader, their use carries the risk of making the author sound pretentious.
Why then do we have so many words? And why do we choose to use big words when smaller ones would suffice? Certainly, one wants to ensure an understanding by the reader. And more specifically, why do I like words so much? My vocabulary is more than adequate, I'm sure. Yet I still encounter, often enough, words with which I am not familiar. Generally, I am not frustrated by them. Often I am glad to encounter them, for I am prone to look them up and learn them. I like learning new words.
In part, I think, it is an aesthetic thing. In certain situations there will always be one word that looks or sounds better than another. But that hardly justifies our wealth of words, does it? Is it possible that we feel such variety of emotion that we desire an adequate supply of words to capture our sentiment? Or is it, in the end, a reflection of our competitive nature, that we've created so many words in order to vaunt the size of our vocabulary?
The best explanation I can come up with is this: I'm silly. :)