In the video, Helen spoke of the phenomenon of "zombie-fying" words, adding prefixes and suffixes, turning verbs into nouns and making otherwise vibrant action words into corporate soul-sucking rhetoric. Why say "use" when you can say "utilization"? "The proliferation of nominalization" (see?) seems to be the problem with a lot of writing nowadays. These often empty, abstract phrases are viewed as a mastery of the language, and an indication of education and sophistication. Heck, it is how we aspire to write in school and academia. It is also wildly common in corporate, legal, or philosophical materials, where they are used to convey objectivity, precision and overall convoluted ideas. They certainly have a place in the society today, but should we always strive for complicated sentence construction and word choices? My answer is leaning towards, "whenever you can, write simply," (thank goodness for this class!)
I must admit there's merit in using the "right" word in your writing, however. There may be no substantial difference in "plethora" and "myriad" (both of which sound rather obnoxious and should be used with discretion), but there are occasions where using "livid" say more than just "mad" - "livid" tends to bring an associated imagery of a flushed, fuming person who is much more angry than a "mad" person. And the umbrella of "mad" words also includes "crossed" or "irritated", both of which are milder expressions than the ones mentioned above. So I say there is nothing wrong with having a command of extensive vocabulary at your disposal, but keep an keen eye on how frequent they are used in a sentence, and how indispensable they are to your argument, or you risk losing your readers or sounding like a pretentious... prick. (I am guilty of this too. I am quite aware that this post is full of zombie words. I apologize if it sounds too pedantic to you - wait, is using "pedantic" too pedantic?)
