In the spirit of the original post, but with a slight twist: does anyone ever find him/herself self-editing? depending on your company?
Occasionally I will be chatting away to someone and a word I want to use will occur to me, but I'm sure that either the person won't understand it, or will think me the most unmitigated linguasnob for using it. Then I pause and riffle through the thesaurus in my head - during which exercise I gape and wind up looking like I'm catching flies - and ultimately I use the word anyway, because it seems perfect. Often the person will make some comment but praise God, most of my friends and acquaintances don't ride me down for it!
Although sometimes they act like bel's hubby, and start using the word over and over for a little while....Maybe they're just trying to commit it to memory, like some oral-tradition form of Increase Your Word Power.
