Utilizing Thesauri to Attain a Façade of Erudition

Utilizing Thesauri to Attain a Façade of Erudition November 27, 2012

As the end of a semester draws near, and having been reading student papers, let me offer a word of advice to any students who happen to be reading this. Thesauruses give words which overlap in meaning, and that is useful. But two words are not always interchangeable even if they are essentially synonymous. And attempts to sound more eloquent than you are, or as though you have a broader vocabulary than you do, are rarely successful, and will typically leave you sounding at best stilted and at worst incomprehensible.

Let me put it another way. Saying that you are supralunar that someone is no longer feeling submeteorological will produce chuckles, rather than making your reader impressed.


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