Random Social Concerns

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An ex-friend once told me that when I used "big words" it made him feel stupid, my vocabulary isn't as extensive as he is making it out to be and he could have just looked up the words he didn't understand, that's what I do when I don't understand something someone says. I'm not sure why he thought it was wrong of me to speak the way I do just because he didn't care enough to look up a few words. How can you learn new words when you refuse to be exposed to them? Even if I did try to limit my vocabulary to easily recognizable words, I wouldn't be sure which words would be classified as "big words", to me they were all normal words. I feel like most of my posts are negative, I should probably post more about the good things that happen in my life to balance it out.

It is still a mystery to me why my mother got annoyed on little me using sophisticated words that "did not fit a small child". When my daughter does the same, I find it only a bit funny.
So I can only signal I know the issue exists but I have no idea where it comes from.

sounds like primitive

Big words can be alternative way of saying something.
But big words can be a more precise way of saying something.
Both can have their purpose.

I remember when I was taking a drafting class in high school, the teacher would have roll-call before each class began. As each boy's name was called, there would respond "Here".
I would respond the same way. But the teacher would call my name again. So I would say "Here" again just a little louder thinking I said it too quiet. But this went on for several minutes. He was objecting to the way I said "Here" and in a sense he was ridiculing my pronunciation.
So after about a week I gave the matter some thought, I went to class and he called my name and I said "Present". He was about to call my name again but he went into a quiet shock. I said "Present" perfectly and there was no obvious way he could object, so he called the next boy. The rest of the boys in the class gave a quiet chuckle and smiled.
"Present" is just an alternate way of saying "Here"

@jimmy m you're right, big words do have their usefulness. Your old teacher sounds like someone who would be difficult to deal with, I hope he was better at teaching than he was at being polite. Was your drafting class an art class? Or was it an architecture/construction class?

The class was architecture/construction drafting. I still use the tools I learned in the class even today, over 50 years later. The teacher did get in trouble though. Everyone in the class had a number of drafting assignment due at the end of the term. Everyone needed to turn in a set of blueprints by the last day of the term. But the materials to create the blueprints did not arrive until a day or two before the end of term. So imagine a whole class frantically trying to get their blueprints made all at once. On the last day before the end of term everyone was making blueprints but since it was a wet solution chemical process, they had to dry, so they were left about the classroom drying. Well the teacher did not collect the blueprints. He felt that if they were not on his desk neatly folded, then they had not been turned in. So he flunked the entire class. Everyone received "F's" on their report cards. The parents of many of those kids complained to the principal and he was ordered to reevaluate the grades for the entire class.

That sounds like a really interesting class. I've taken a few of my school's construction classes, but we don't have any that focus on architecture or drafting. I can't believe the materials were that late, I'm surprised and impressed that everyone was able to finish the blueprints in such a short amount of time, it sounds like it was very chaotic. I'm glad they made him regrade everything, it would be awful to fail a class just because the materials were late and the teacher wasn't willing to grant even a little leniency due to the situation.

heh is that for real???