Words used only to impress the readers are a misfortune to phony writers; but when "big words" belong to the particular style of a writer, they are not a curse. They are enhancing, indeed.
Did you feel Derrida's words are empty? Certainly not because that is the style of Derrida: scary, disturbing, sometimes, but in harmony with its text and context.
-Anna's comment to a previous post
I'm so glad to see someone stand up for a good vocabulary, so much so that I am willing to pollute the main blog with a comment. There is a difference between padding your writing to simulate intellect and enhancing your writing with good words. And yes, "simulate" is a better choice than "fake" and "intellect" is a better choice than "smartness." Different words, even if recorded as synonyms in a thesaurus, contain certain sonic and connotative nuances that distinguish them from others. If we all wrote strictly for clarity, the entire literary realm would be a pretty little rendition of Orwell's Newspeak, and that's double-plus-ungood. At the very least, you can alleviate the agitation of reading about the Pharmakon by admitting, albeit begrudgingly, that you are perhaps learning a new word of two. And this is nothing to be mad about.
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