You often hear of the need for a rich storehouse of words so you can expressive yourself clearly. This is true, but this does not mean selecting from that storehouse only important sounding, polysyllabic Latin and Greek words.
What you need to select, according to Theodore A. Rees Cheney in his book, Getting Words Right are "truly expressive words, mainly nouns and verbs."
The words you retrieve can be, "long or short, impressive sounding or simple, Latin or Saxon in origin....le mot juste could be French in origin he says, but More often it is a simple Saxon word like break, scatter, glimmer or shut, that will work best.
On the other hand, he says at times you will need the longer Latinate words.
Be careful, he warns: " If you want to move the genuinely sophisticated, highly intelligent,, and well educated, write in plain English, with only the occasionally, carefully chosen, Latinate word."
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