WORD OF THE DAY

A few weeks ago I signed up for a "Word of the Day" email newsletter. 

It's occasionally enlightening but mostly useless.

Most of the featured words are so obscure that if you used them, you would sound either idiotic (like you had just made up a word or used the wrong one) or pretentious (like you're trying to sound smart by pretending this word is part of your working vocabulary).

Here's a great example from the other day:

"Crepitate" means "to make a crackling sound".

These emails always give a few examples of how to use the word properly. For "crepitate", these were the sample sentences:

• "The fallen leaves crepitate under Samuel's feet as he runs through the woods."
• "I could practically hear electricity crepitating beneath my fingers when I touched the plasma ball at the science museum."
• "Lisa relished how the fire crepitated as more logs were thrown on."

Some words are better left out of sight in the retirement home. 

With a do-not-resuscitate order.