<p>Using “big” words? They don’t seem “big” to me. My children have often had this problem, though. They have been accused, in the past, of trying to “impress” people when all they were really trying to do was convey shades of meaning as accurately as they could using common words in our household. I do write rather formally. I always have and always will. It is the way I was trained. I try (not always successfully) to use proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar, as well.</p>
<p>I don’t apologize for that, for my working vocabulary, or for the working vocabularies of my children.</p>
<p>By all means, please give me a reference for the psychological study that “proves” that everyone who uses “big words” in an “informal environment” is “quite pretentious” and “full of” him or herself. I am a psychologist, and I am always interested in new data, especially data that deals with individuals in such a way that all diagnoses can be made from a single, subjective datum.</p>
<p>I am not a Tar Heel. My handle refers to an historical period with which I’m sure you’re not familiar, and is an oblique reference to some early work of mine on the effect of myth in behavioral norming.</p>
<p>You were most certainly caught out, and you know it. In response to a challenge to your original numbers, you cited a reference that was supposed to put the challenge to bed. Unfortunately, you forgot that one can check references. I did.</p>