Personally, I appreciate it when authors use some words I don't understand and have to look up. I want to learn new things. And that's the way one learns new words. (Of course, if I'm looking up 5 words per page, I quit!) It's why I read National Geographic in Spanish, because I am forced to expand my vocabulary in Spanish considering all the topics the magazine covers. I'm going to come across as a word snob here, but I think many readers are regrettably lazy. Generalization coming up--and too many people are comfortable using a tiny fraction of the words available to them, and using them poorly at that! (Maybe that's just a reaction to teaching high school students.) I am determined to use the right word when I write, even if it means a bit of a challenge for the reader. My wife and I have a lot of good discussions as I pull out the bedside dictionary to look up some obscure word or usage. (Any yes, I am both anal-retentive and a sci-fi fan.) Why should a person feel stupid for using a dictionary? It is the stupid-by-choice person who won't take the time to use the appropriate reference to answer a question he or she has. The reference I really need is a reverse-dictionary. There is a counterpart to "eidetic" meaning a perfect memory for a physical action, allowing the rememberer to perform the action perfectly. I encountered the word once but have never been able to track it down again.