continued from where my computer left off...

(sometimes my computer asks me, "Do you want to navigate away from this page--cancel or continue?" and then won't let you do anything---I have to remove the battery to get it to shut down--does anyone have any "treatments" for this "disease"?  Or is it my machine going viral, the way of all viruses? Thank Someone for Autosave!

Re: 50 cent words--I recall gas being 25cents a gallon in Mt. Carroll Il when I was there in the late 60's--and the "coinage" of the term goes back further than that.  So given this "inflation of gas"  (heh) wouldn't a 50 cent word by a $5 word by now?

I have noticed, though, that professional writers still sprinkle their prose with a few terms few know about, so I have to reach for my dictionary--now easier than ever on my fone;Spanish too...

But beyond two or three, most prose is very plain even in literary magazines for the (NPR) college or geek-washed public--research papers however usualy have impenetrable neologistics and erudite language to conceal the meanings--of usually quite ordinary concepts dressed up in new outfits--not fooling Calvin and Hobbes however!  But if you want to get ahead in a foreign country still gotta learn the "idiomas"..but we wouldn't want the unwashed masses to catch on to the actually rather shallow nature of most research. (Harper's has a section in the back where they "unpack" some pretty inane factoids and truthiness of absurd "extreme research"--I always look at this first, and Flo actually enjoys it also.)("No one enjoys a good laugh more than I do...")

In other words, expensive words can be expansive words too--it's sometimes nice to know that there is actually a word for some of the things that roll around unattached in my head!  But also it gives a little spice and a little challenge to the reader--and causes us to realize that, no, we don't know everything, not even our own language.  The dictum in Jefferson Grade School still holds: "We never guess--we look it up." 

But my question still remaineth: how can I look up the spelling of a word if I don't know how to spell it in the first place?  At least in reading we usually already have the spelling in front of us!