When I was in seventh grade, I got booted from the big spelling bee on “rhinoceros” after debating and then incorrectly adding a “u” at the end. You can bet I have spelled that word correctly every time it has come up since (which, to be fair, hasn’t been very often). It’s not a particularly big word, which might be why I wanted to make it bigger, but it was big enough to trip me up at the time. And I considered myself something of an avid reader who’d bumped into plenty of tricky words.

Note that I said “avid.” Not “voracious.” This word choice was intentional.

When I began life as an editor, I was surprised at how often authors try to sound smart by using big words that they shouldn’t—because the word is flat-out wrong, because it is a buzzword and has thus lost all meaning (if it ever had one), because the result sounds silly—you name it, I’ve probably seen it.

I spend a lot of time changing “methodology” to “method,” “linkage” to “link,” and “utilize” to “use.” These are not synonyms. Some authors think they are and that more letters sounds more erudite. These authors are wrong.

A recent example of a buzzword is “bespoke.” There’s an absolutely brilliant scene in the movie Confess, Fletch about this word that distills every feeling I’ve ever had about faddish words like “craft,” “synergy,” and “holistic.” My mom went on a rant the other day about “gaslighting—It was a great movie! Shut up with that word!”

But my favorites are the words that are technically correct but stick out because the voice is all wrong. “Connie has, like, this sixth sense about people. She’s, ya know, perspicacious.” Not wrong, but so out of tune that it sounds like it might be. “That horror flick scared the right-hell out of me, man. I watched the whole thing just full of trepidation.” I suppose there are people who talk like this, but I’ve never met them.

All that said, there are some big words that I love tossing out in exactly these tone-deaf constructions just to see how people react. “Bumbershoot” got a workout when Mr. Cumberbatch was first making the scene. “Crepuscular,” which sounds gross but isn’t. “Scrofulous,” which sound gross, and is. “Sangfroid,” although I confess I struggle with pronunciation on that one.

I also tend to run across words and think, “Ooh, that’s a great word. Let’s bring that back,” and then promptly forget the word exists.

What big words do you wish were better known or used correctly more often?