Linguaphiles of Tildes: where do you get your words?

To answer your question, reading. To elaborate on that answer somewhat, I actively look up words that I don't already know. Meaning, even if a sentence makes sense to me from context, I will often still stop and take advantage of the Internet to pop it into Google and read the definition. If necessary, I'll click on a Merriam Webster or Oxford Dictionary link and read it there. It seems not that many people do this; either the reading or the looking up.

As far as using them in language, spoken or written, I've found people get really pissy when they begin to sense your vocabulary is more expansive than theirs. You get written off. They just put you into an "ignored" or "not for me" category because you don't drop down to their conversational level. Some of them actively file you under "uppity asshole" simply for having the temerity to have a vocabulary.

Most people's conversational level around 9th grade. Sometimes not even that. Off the top of my head, I've had people start angry exchanges with me (the anger seemingly coming from how they don't know the word and are upset it's become apparent both they and I are now aware of this fact) over the use of words like pithy, elicit, quixotic, capricious, and alliteration.

One woman, who I will never forget, even accused me of being some kind of asshole bigot because I used the phrase "yada yada" in conversation. She thought the phrase was some sort of coded "fuck you" sentiment, that I was using it to tell her off or something like that. And, even now, I don't even watch Seinfeld. Not that Seinfeld originated the phrase, but the show had re-popularized the hell out of it in the 90s, and I'd picked it up from pop culture context. Simply by paying attention to language, and I'm not even some kind of linguistic scholar; I just read and think a lot.

Pithy really annoyed me, and I've also never forgotten that one either. The guy who got annoyed with me was freaking British. As in, from England. He stopped our (work) conversation to ask me what I meant by pithy. Then proceeded to inform me that pithy didn't mean what I was using it to indicate (concise substantive linguistic style). And got seriously bent out of shape when, after we dropped it into the brand new (at the time) Google it came out the word did match the context and meaning I was using it in.

So, basically, people are the problem. They'd rather be angry than wrong, and they definitely often prefer to choose anger over even the slightest sense of embarrassment. Why it should be embarrassing to learn a new word is completely beyond me, but that's the usual reaction I encounter; that they don't know the word(s) that've come up in the conversation triggers some sort of humiliation reflex that they'll then convert into anger to burn back the humiliation with rage.

What's the result? The common vocabulary hovers at around 20K words, and most people are toward the lower end of that band. These are adults, by the way. A lifelong reader might reach their golden years with a vocabulary that's expanded to maybe twice that, and someone who's very well read might reach around 60K or thereabouts. If you wander around using big words, you leave others perplexed and often irritated as a result, and those negative reactions then exacerbate any subsequent attempts to interact with them.

Fun times.

ps: I about died laughing when Shaun of the Dead did their exacerbate joke. However, note they had to define the word before they could then use it later in proper context. Otherwise, when "Don't exacerbate things!" comes up later in the middle of a tense scene, it wooshes right over the head of the bulk of the audience. The screenwriters found a way to make it funny when they defined it, but they pretty much had to define it to avoid that subsequent woosh.

Hello, and thank you for posing this question. I enjoyed seeing the replies (and the resources. Yoink!) from the linguists. I am not a linguist. I do have a casual interest in Philology, Rhetoric, and Oratory, though. So my answers may be radically different and faux pas in official circles.

There is the boring way (which I've done many times). This is where I'll read a dictionary cover-to-cover to look for exciting words/find gaps in my language, or blind-pick a page and focus on using one word for the day. It's a fun way to discover words, but good luck slipping myasthenia gravis into casual conversation. When I encounter hazardous terrain linguistically, I also use Sisson's word and expression locater, A Browser's Dictionary by John Ciardi, and Speaker's Lifetime Library by Leonard and Thelma Spinard. Some of these resources are more effective than others, but they all tend to get me over that hump.

Second, and something I picked up from Joseph Tsar's video on speaking articulately, is that we tend to think in the terms of what we experience. (Think of the Tetris Dream Effect.) So like Krellor, DavesWorld, and boxer_dogs_dance said, read. Read a variety of books from different authors, times, and places. You'll go far this way. I prefer translations of Ancient Greek, Latin, or Japanese philosophical works for concepts and sentence structure, and mid-to-post WWII books (1939-51) for words. Memoirs and Sci-Fi are my go-to's.

More importantly than just books, consume your broader media in a way that will expose you to new words and phrases. Try watching "old movies". Watch Casablanca (not even for new words. Just watch it.) Learning words is easy, retaining them not so much. When we consume endless media (especially short-span content with instant dopamine rewards) it pushes the good stuff (like delectable new words) out of our brain. So avoid consuming meaningless short-term content in great quantities; Ideally don't watch it at all, but I'll forgive the human element.

I keep history's greatest speeches on my phone to listen to when I'm looking for that kind of kick. Here are those resources for you: archive.org | Greatest Speeches of the 20th Century, americanrhetoric.com | Top Ten Speeches.

Do you keep lists of words that you review and learn about? Do you make effort to include your newly found words in writing or conversation?

Yes, my list is aptly titled "Personal Glossary of Words: Found and Remembered". I incorporate these words where it's appropriate to do so (this is key) in casual conversation. Studying the structure of conversation and how to communicate well will accomplish a lot for you here. I'd say treat words like wine. Save the rarer, limited words for special occasions (or save a few to enjoy to yourself.)

If you want a handful of my favorite words from my collection, I'll add a few for you. Some may seem simple, but I love them all.

corollary, efficacious, idiosyncratic, internecine, picayune, prosody, pontificate, reticence, tryst, and vicissitudes.

When I record the words, I'll mark the work they came from, the page#/season:episode, and the date of addition. So 'Picayune' came from page 28 of My Share of the Task by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and Tryst came from iZombie Season 1: Episode 8. I also mark when I find the same word in other books with a special notation specific to "repeated finding of words already listed in glossary." It's a good time.

What an essay, good luck with your word-finding! I'll leave you with a latin phrase as well. Scientia Non Olet, it's a small play on pecunia non olet, but it essentially means that the place that you got the knowledge from doesn't matter as much as the value of the knowledge itself, so don't worry if your word comes from iZombie or some obscure text assigned to a college reading class. Both are valid.

I study literature in university as well as français langue seconde (french as a second language) so I guess I am rather privileged to be dedicating much of my time to this pursuit. Much of what I get to read allows me to extend my vocabulary quite thoroughly, and my interest in linguistics and etymology are also invoked whenever I look up words in older texts I do not know. One of the most helpful things for me has been reading texts written in Middle-English, if you've never read any there's some texts that are written in more mutually intelligible dialects than others (some you'll likely want a gloss of sorts), and looking up the occasional word always leads to incredible etymological information.

Learning French, Latin (Classical) and Ancient Greek (Attic) has also been quite useful. I'm fairly fluent in French at this point after studying for so long, which then gave me quite a useful basis going into Latin and Greek. At least for my study methods / interests, learning the vocabulary for Latin and Greek was often made accessible by seeing the etymological connections to French or English (often to words that aren't used often, had a shift in meaning etc)

I'll second reading, but add that it helps to read a wide variety of types of books from different eras. If you read the same genre over and over you won't get the same coverage as if you go wide.

E.g., some 20th century WWII biographies, some Charles Dickens, some Tolstoy, Stephen Pinker, Nassim Taleb, and a smattering of fiction and fantasy will expose you to a wide swath of language. This is just an example, but if you develop this wide ranging diet, and look up every word you don't know or see in a context you don't expect, you'll be filling the $5 word jar at work.

I would suggest challenging yourself to also pick authors from cultures you haven't read much of. I made an effort to diversify the authors I read and it was rewarding. One book that jumps out is "Who fears death" which was written by an African woman and was an amazing book and cultural experience.

Edit: and Stephen Pinker in particular has a knack for using less common words in exactly the right context, which is satisfying to read. But what else would you expect from the Chair of Usage for the American heritage dictionary.

I have been a book lover all of my life and most of my learning of new words happens organically through reading well written books, especially books set in other places or written in the past.

Some words I have learned through my work.

I also love the traditional word hunt through reading authors like Dickens.

You don’t need to go that far back for fiction with bougie words, e.g Le Guin and Walker Percy drop bougie words like Pitbull drops summer jams.

I try to express my thoughts in the simplest possible way for the audience I intend.

Jargon is sometimes necessary as a shortcut to communicating complex ideas quickly to an audience who already knows the terminology. Outside of being a time-saving measure, I try to still communicate as clearly and conversationally as possible even in these situations. If you are going to talk about something you are knowledgeable about with people who aren't, it is a craft to make these complex ideas accessible.

The thought of using unfamiliar complex words for the sake of it seems wrongheaded; what are you even trying to accomplish?