Big Words

The poor receptionist.  I had never seen her before, and she told us she was temping.  I walked in and just sat down.  She said “your name was?” and I told her, and then I told her it still is.  This has nothing to do with anything, but I thought I would just throw it in there.
The word for today for me was “big words.” It is actually two words.  The two words for today for me were “big words.”  I love knowing them, but I am hesitant to use them. 
What I really do not like is, every one talking in acronyms.  I had been filling in at a meeting where everyone was talking in them, and it all was double Dutch to me.  It was not that I did not want to understand, it was just that I could not.
I was watching the golf.  It was the Australian PGA.  I thought if I did not know PGA stands for Professional Golfers Association, I would have no clue as to what it was about (my dad was right into golf).
Anyway I have been considering big words.  I am keen to know them.  I reckon “magnanimous” is a fairly big word.  So is “circumlocution.” I just looked that up.  It means “the use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.”  I am not sure I like this program, with examples of words like that.
While I am keen to know them, I am not keen to use them.  The reason I like to know them is, besides it potentially opening doors, I have seen people talking that used a word I had never heard.  Generally I can work out what it means by the context it is used in, but the chances are, it will take some figuring out.  Why that is a problem for me, is that while I am figuring it out, I may miss something important.
My thinking is, when I have a choice of an obscure or a common word, then I go for the common word.  For me, the more people that understand me the better.  It would probably happen anyway, but I prefer not to be met with blank stares.
What I have trouble with is exclusivity.  It is great to impress people with what I know (well, I think it would be), but the people cost can be high.  Whenever I have a choice of a few people understanding me, or many, I always go for the many.  Even if the audience is really highbrow (I can dream), I prefer that everyone understand.   The goal for me is to be understood, rather than to impress.
I don’t think I am the ultimate “anti-snob.”  In fact, I do not think I am the ultimate anything. We all do stuff, and we all have our reasons for doing stuff.  A problem for me though is pretension.  Just because maybe I can, does not mean that I have to.