think you're smug and pretentious. At the same time, you don't want to fill your speech with slang words when you're being considered by a panel of faculty for a professorship. And while you do want to use technical terms when discussing your invention with fellow scientists, you don't when trying to sell your idea to a layman venture capitalist. You get the idea. Cater your vocabulary to the circumstances and pick words that will allow you both to express yourself and make yourself understood, while being engaging and setting your listener at ease. Never assume a shared vocabulary and know your audience! Finally, always remember Mark Twain's famous admonition to not "use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do." And occasionally, even using a nickel piece is fine; if "awesome" or "epic" really is the best word to describe how you feel about something, then go for it -- pompous vocab police be damned. I ran a test prep business for quite a few years, and I was always having parents ask me what their young kids should do to prepare for the SAT or ACT. Kids who weren't even in high school yet. A lot of companies are happy to enroll those kids in some course, and keep them paying for classes for the next five years. But what a time and money suck! I mostly told those parents that the very best thing their kids could do is READ. A. LOT. And while reading something