Both embiggen the smallest mind.
The main purpose of words of course is to communicate clearly. Most of these "is that really a word?" word get their point across just fine, yet a choice of words can easily be so jarring that the dissonance disrupts the meaning. In cases like that, surely a better choice of words existed.
For example, people who say "utilize" instead of "use" and "action item" instead of "task" are almost always just being gratuitously stilted.
Posted by Matt Bruce at February 27, 2007 02:15 PM