Say whaaaat??

The book I'm reading at the moment is full of big words. Gi-normous words. To the point where I read it holding the book in my left hand and the dictionary in my right hand. So it was with some amusement that I came across this rather large lexeme the other day...
Polyphloisboiotatotic.

Huh???

According to the Oxford English Dictionary this ridiculously huge expression translates to:

'That roars most loudly of all or very loudly indeed'.

It was once used (probably the only time it was ever used in the history of etymology) in a sentence by William Makepeace Thackeray, when, in 1843 he wrote:

'The line of the shore washed by the poluphlosboiotic, nay, the poluphlosboiotatotic sea.'

Respect.

Brobdingnagian lexemes*

There I was, getting happily reacquainted with the frantic and furious Yossarian in Catch 22, when Joseph Heller went and tripped me over a huge big word.
"Infundibuliform". It sat there, fat and smug on the page, taking up half a line with erudite verbosity. Even in context I still couldn't put my finger on exactly what it meant.
"...had it not been for that patriotic Texan with his infundibuliform jowls and his lumpy, rumpleheaded, indestructible smile..."
Ardent readers will nod their heads in quiet understanding when I tell you that I have a system for dealing with random injections of sesquipedalian loquaciousness. If a dictionary is not at hand, I fold over the bottom corner of the page so I can look up said word later.
(By the way it means funnel-shaped. Why didn't he just say so?)
There's a time and a place for big words, but I try to use smart words - that is, words that will ensure your reader knows what you're on about. Doesn't matter if it's plain language, it's whatever's appropriate to move your story forward and take your readers with you.

If you're writing for an audience of intelligentsia whose preference is to engage in the manifestation of prolix exposition, splendid! Use big words.

If you're writing a novel for people who enjoy a great story, use smart words.

I'm pretty sure if my mate Bob the Builder was reading this, he'd have zoned out by the third syllable of the infundi-word. He reckons I'm guilty of magniloquence here in my blog. But I have a word for you Mister: 
"Sesquipedalophobia" - the fear of long words. In more severe cases known as "Hippomonstrosesquippedaliophobia" ;)


* 'big words'

Iris Blue Iris

Iris, blue iris,

Like the sky of profound wish

- Eternal spring bliss

        Peter S Quinn


I'm thinking about the grandmother of one of my characters and the role she played in his life. This little haiku makes me smile and think of mine...
Part of the fun of writing is drawing from others to create the people and personalities that populate your story.
Speaking at a Literary Feast bookclub meeting recently, the author Charlotte Wood said that whenever a new book or piece of her writing is published, she has to remind her family - as they frantically scan through the pages trying to identify themselves - that it's not always about herself and her relatives. It's fiction!
I like the idea that the people who colour our lives may all figure as a piece of the writer's patchwork - but exactly who, where, when, why and how much they feature... that's the writer's little secret ;-)