There are so many wonderful words that you hardly ever hear in casual conversation. When I was in high school, I remember an English teacher talking about $50 words, meaning words that are meant to sound fancy but usually come off as pretentious. I guess that’s a sign of inflation, as it’s been said that Mark Twain once said, “Don’t use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.”

I’m always torn on that idea about vocabulary. While I don’t want to be pretentious, I love words and love hav...