The long and pedantic words are not really the big ones. It is the words that are short and simple and well-known that are big, swollen with the meaning of a thousand tongues that have touched them. I read a word “pulviscular” recently. When i looked it up online, the only evidence of the word being used was from the original text where I found it. How is this supposed to mean anything to a reader? Other than what she finds when she opens up the dictionary to seek out the word and then defines it in terms of the other smaller, simpler words that she has known from mnemonic context. It is these short and stubby words most often used that have swollen fat and convey the most meaning. It is the complex and haughty words that are rarely used which must draw their meaning from the short and stubby words that are truly the big ones.