What are people's thoughts on hard vocabulary?

[RepresentingEnvy]

As long as your story is comprehensible to your readers. If you know your readers are going to be super nerds then use big obscure word.

If you are writing for the average reader base on here use normal vocabulary with maybe the occasional head scratcher where it fits. You can teach someone something without even realizing they're learning.

Many times I do not try to look up words myself, just to see if context clues are helping.

 

[K5Rakitan]

We have the internet. Use the words you want to use, and we can look them up if we need to.

 

[OatMush]

Hum hum! Ok I think I'm mostly going with @Missivist suggestion because I have a few scenes and characters that can be modified to this purpose, and this could be the most fun. I think I will also include @OokamiKasumi's suggestion and include a soft of short glossary at the bottom of the chapter.
@Seaspecter I know that wiki well, although I've decided to keep the language to fairly basic stuff and just use words like 'deck' 'stern' 'beam' and other fairly basic stuff.


But! I only used maritime jargon as an example, I mean more broadly I'm curious on people's thoughts on using harder\rarer words.
For example I use 'obeisant'. I like this word, but to be honest I only learnt about it recently when I was looking things up in a thesaurus.
In context:

My father grinds the base of his stubby tusks against his upper jaw. Sitting on the other side of him Uncle looks so obeisant I think he'd suck orc-dick if Sicklemouth dropped his shorts.

I think I'm using it correctly and I hope it's meaning is more or less obvious, but I don't know if I should use it or stick with something more common.

 

[bulmabriefs144]

As long as your story is comprehensible to your readers. If you know your readers are going to be super nerds then use big obscure word.

If you are writing for the average reader base on here use normal vocabulary with maybe the occasional head scratcher where it fits. You can teach someone something without even realizing they're learning.

Many times I do not try to look up words myself, just to see if context clues are helping.

I use about fourth grade reading level or even go full Hemingway sometimes. Occasionally, I hyphenate words or make up phrases by splicing together Latin or Greek words. People who understand suffixes and prefixes can puzzle it out by looking at the word parts. For other ppl, it isn't in any dictionary. I also use some phrases from other languages.

 

[Placeholder]

> Uncle looks so obeisant

Servile, maybe?

I think I see obeisant mostly as an adverb. Feels forced here.

 

[OatMush]

> Uncle looks so obeisant

Servile, maybe?

I think I see obeisant mostly as an adverb. Feels forced here.

From what I can find, obeisantly is adverb form, so I believe my use is correct. But if it sounds forced then it may be a sign I shouldn't use it anyway.

 

[Placeholder]

Sure.

I'd write "his obeisant scrabble/groveling/crouch/grin" but wouldn't think to use it stand-alone.

I'm arguing based on feelings.

 

[TsumiHokiro]

"Hard" is a very common word, you can use it without worries.
Words that come from "hard" should not be a problem to be understood.

 

[doravg]

I'm writing a story with a lot boat terminology. I don't know much about boats, but I know a little and I'm researching any words I don't know. The problem is I have no idea if it's reasonable to expect others to know what something like 'starboard beam' means. There's other places I want use more archaic words but ehhhh ... I'm trying to make it clear through context, but I'm not the best writer so I'm worried it will be tiresome for readers if they have to keep googling words or phrases.

What do you think?

A well-researched story is always appreciated. One of my stories had a lot of medical terminology. I researched the stuffings out of blogs for it. I must have done something right because it was stolen by a Russian who translated it to the end. So, be ready to have your story stolen, when it ends up making your readers feel smart for understanding your explanations.

 

[NannoWazHere]

At times just opt for more simpler terms since as a reader no one wants to be searching up words all of the time. But that's just my opinion

 

[melchi]

Even if the terms are confusing the context can carry the story.

Example: "Hard to port" The rudder / tiller (or whatever) gets shoved to the left side. This will cause the ship to turn right.

Will this confuse readers? I don't think so. Even if the reason they want to turn is on the other side from how they are picturing it in their head the fact that need to turn fast for some reason would be obvious anyway. As long as there are not jibberish commands like "Hard to bow" I don't think anyone would complain.