Thanks to a good school system, a couple of especially aggressive teachers, and prolific reading habits, I have aquired a better than average vocabulary. I don't go around flaunting my word smith abilities, but I am comfortable with "big words". I recognize and understand them when I hear and see them, and I use them in my own writing and speaking.

Quick Linguistic Note: In linguistic terms (and this also pops up in ed classes), there is what is known as an active and a passive vocabulary. Your vocabulary is the sum total of all the words you know and understand. Your active vocabulary is the words you actually use in your writing and your speaking. Your passive vocabulary are the words you understand, they're part of your lexicon, but for whatever reason you don't use them frequently or at all. Active is what you use, passive is what you have and don't use. Typically an adult's passive vocabulary is twice as big as their active vocabulary. The person who is often the most impressive vocab wise (or perceived as the most arrogant know-it-all) may not actually have a bigger total vocabulary than you, they just have a larger percentage of their words in their active vocabulary. Also words can go back and forth between the two as your usage changes.

Okay, back to the point at hand: I know the word copacetic. I recognize it, I understand it. The other day one of my coworkers used it and I got to thinking. For whatever reason, I have never used that word, other than two sentences ago. I don't know why. Usually even when words have slipped back into my passive vocabulary, at one point I took them out and tried them on for size. But never copacetic. I don't like that word, and I don't know why. Perhaps because I think it sounds really 70s and cheesy.

And a general message: I have occasionally seen/heard people making fun of someone who uses a more advanced vocab word and mispronounces it. My father had a really good attitude about that. He used to tell me that all that meant was that person had only ever read the word, not heard it pronounced. This means that the person was reading, absorbing what they're reading, and trying to incorporate it into their daily life. They were trying to improve themselves and we should always respect and admire that. I used to do that as a child, read a word and then mispronounce it when I tried to use it. Now I tend to look up pronunciations because of that fear, and a desire to put my linguistics education to use by showing off my ability to read phonetic characters.