Most journalists avoid obscure or even slightly unfamiliar words; they are trained to be brief, readable and never to give a reader a chance to become distracted, set aside the publication, pick up a dictionary and never pick up the publication again.
When I took up blogging I was suddenly free of the watchful eyes of editors (even editors usually have editors). While it's still an ineluctable rule of good writing to avoid an unfamiliar word when a familiar one will do the job, I am now free to use any word I like, so I have been ineluctably drawn towards using more unusual words. It helps that blogs are normally read on computers, so it takes but an instant for readers to Google an unfamiliar word and carry on exactly where they left off. This has produced an ineluctable change in my writing. Our African-grey parrots, Kofi and Kass do not usually go gentle into that good night. I can now use" crepuscular" (pertaining to twilight) to describe their evening recital which goes something like this: “What do you want to watch?” “ I can’t hear you.” “What’s for dinner?” “Whatever!” (We are very careful not to curse within their hearing, them being God-fearing Southerners and all). Crepuscular is a recondite, but useful, word when you have parrots.
But, like ineluctable, recondite is for me to know, and you to Google.
When I took up blogging I was suddenly free of the watchful eyes of editors (even editors usually have editors). While it's still an ineluctable rule of good writing to avoid an unfamiliar word when a familiar one will do the job, I am now free to use any word I like, so I have been ineluctably drawn towards using more unusual words. It helps that blogs are normally read on computers, so it takes but an instant for readers to Google an unfamiliar word and carry on exactly where they left off. This has produced an ineluctable change in my writing. Our African-grey parrots, Kofi and Kass do not usually go gentle into that good night. I can now use" crepuscular" (pertaining to twilight) to describe their evening recital which goes something like this: “What do you want to watch?” “ I can’t hear you.” “What’s for dinner?” “Whatever!” (We are very careful not to curse within their hearing, them being God-fearing Southerners and all). Crepuscular is a recondite, but useful, word when you have parrots.
But, like ineluctable, recondite is for me to know, and you to Google.
