Rarely used words can confuse readers — but inspire knowledge at the same time

Obscure words.

Sometimes a problem, sometimes an opportunity.

In an otherwise lucid column, a New York Times opinion writer used the word carceral. I had never seen it before. The dictionary says it refers to incarceration. Why didn't the writer use a familiar word? Was he showing off?

William F. Buckley Jr. was our most prominent purveyor of arcane words, such as epicene, which means having characteristics of both male and female genders, or of neither.

I had to look it up.

I always thought of Buckley as haughty, with a hint of naughty, deploying his cryptic vocabulary, a throwback to Victorian England. I mean, come on, folks, that man played the harpsichord.

When I teach college students, I forbid them to use the word dichotomy or the term paradigm shift. I see them squirming, because they use those all the time.

Back to "carceral." I bet that hardly any readers have encountered that word in print.

Confession: Certain obscure words that I have seen before keep driving me to the dictionary.

When I see "eleemosynary" or "fungible," my brain freezes. Eleemosynary means relating to or dependent on charity; fungible refers to interchangeable goods, or workers indistinguishable from others based on their value to their employer.

Moments after I see those definitions, they fly out of my head.

So, why can I remember that, in 1962, Rudy LaRusso scored 50 points for the Minneapolis Lakers in a basketball game against the St. Louis Hawks? Rudy was an All-Star, therefore not — hey, now I do remember! — fungible.

Reminds me of long evenings as a teenager, surfing through my encyclopedia, propelled from one new world to another, wondering what delights lay ahead.