Anyone accused of pretension due to extensive vocabulary?

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The French can be extremely tribal, though culturally they regard anti-intellectualism as a boorish sign of willful ignorance..

Yes,Archimedes had an obvious effect on battles but he proved himself useful.
Other intellectuals can go in the wrong direction and burn out, not achieving anything obvious.

Yes!

I wanted to add I don't condone contempt or neglect of the physical aspect in us and I can appreciate and admire great athletes and similar achievements. A harmonious, balanced development should encourage both the body and mind.

I've had this problem since I was a young child. Double mockery since most my polysyllablic vocabulary consisted of words I couldn't pronounce as I'd never heard them spoken. After I rendered "Aborigines" as "Abrogeenies", my dad didn't let me live it down for years. (I was 8.)
I've gradually learned to tailor my language to the level of the people around me. Just because it helps communication, and I do have some friends who didn't swallow the dictionary. Also, using different kinds of language is fun. It's always a relief when I can talk naturally, though. At a SF convention last year, I refered to both wasps and scorpions as "insects" out of habit, 'cos most people ain't into invertebrate taxonomy. To my delight, someone shot back with "Scorpions aren't insects!"

Growing up, people would often give me a hard time for using "big words", but actually being accused of pretension was a rare occurance for me.

I was recently accused of being a smart aleck for using the word 'transliterate' while speaking to someone. It didn't bother me though, translating thought to speech is difficult enough without worrying about whether or not people like the words I choose.

I have learned however not to correct people when they misuse a word, unless they do it repeatedly and I can't take it. I used to think they would like to know if they were wrong. They do not.

I used to do the same thing, thinking people would like to know. I didn't realize they might feel embarrassed or inhibited in expressing themselves because I corrected them. I wasn't actually trying to judge them, only judge the one word out of many. I've also tried to be less of a perfectionist with my own informal writing, like in a text or on a forum. Sometimes, leaving my first thought uncorrected actually has its merits.

Oh, I forgot to mention the context-dependent speech. I don't usually think about it that way, except for the fact that I let my guard down with close friends and I adopt a professional, artificially cheerful customer service tone in the business world. I don't usually talk that much differently to children; when I was a kid, I thought it sounded fake when adults tried to do it to me. I can see the merits in changing my style though; it just doesn't usually sit well with me.