What exactly is the need for building up vocabulary or knowing new words over and above the common words ? I am not asking from academic perspective but trying to grasp the real need for learning new words. Some say that it helps express oneself better but how that’s not possible with the most commonly used words and rare words are anyways perhaps might not be comprehensible as they are uncommon. Isn’t simple and easy better ? Most books use uncommon words that are not spoken in day to day life. Request your views
A. A larger vocabulary means you can understand people and books that use different words.
B. Words are not exact synonyms , there are shades of meaning lost if you just use the simple words. It’s like living on white bread and government cheese - you can do it but you lose all the delight of different flavours and textures.
C. Every community has its own technical terms and jargon, if you don’t learn the words your neighbours and workmates use, you get left behind.
Its not a question of learning new words just to be sesquipedalian - using long words for the sake of it - it’s a question of both precision and joy in language.
Ludwig Wittgenstein summed it up perfectly: “The limits of my language are the limits of my world”