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Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton  I have said elsewhere -- and I have said it often enough on these forums that people may be tired of hearing me say it -- that a writer should not use words in writing that he or she would not use in conversation. |
Nope. Got to disagree with this. People have an active vocabulary and a passive vocabulary. The latter is usually three to five times larger than the former. They use the active vocabulary in conversation, but if they come across a word that's in the latter, they understand. For example, I know what a virgule is, but it's very, very unlikely I'll ever use the word in conversation. That shouldn't be from using it in written fiction, if it's the
exact word I need to use.