Or look them up? I’m a looker-upper and always have been. I delight in learning new words and finding their meanings. I’ll probably never use them, but it’s fun to discover their definitions. For instance I’m reading James Patterson’s mystery, “Double Cross” and on page 59 Patterson’s protagonist Alex Cross uses the word mysophobia. I KIND of knew what it meant but I looked it up to be sure.

“Mysophobia is a term used to describe a pathological fear of contact with dirt, to avoid contamination and germs.”

Now, I seriously doubt I’ll ever use the word in conversation or in my writing, but I’m glad I know what it means.

I’ve been told in more than one writing class not to use obtuse or weird or long or unusual words. You don’t want to tax your reader’s brains, and that’s good advice. It goes back to that ’stopping your reader’ thing. Some people, when confronted with a new word will skip over it. Some will put down the book and stop reading it. Then there are those folks like me who have to run to the dictionary to find the word’s definition. So, what should you do? I say go for it! If the word is right, use it. Always use the best word for that particular situation. I trust that my readers are intelligent and I know they will look up those weird words when they are unsure of their meaning. I still do.

I have a confession to make. A million years ago, in another lifetime, about five jobs back, I worked for TWA in downtown LA. My coworkers called me, “The Librarian” because I always carried a dictionary with me. How nerdy can you get, huh? Well, it became a term of endearment because they all started to come to me for word definitions! I no longer carry a pocket dictionary, but I own a couple. And four thesaurus – yup, I like words. How about you?