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(08-19-2015, 11:12 AM)LadyRochester Wrote: I didn't correct them, but oocily it made me scoff and roll my eyes, mainly because they used that word thinking it would make them come across as more eloquent.
People just do that in RP and in amateur writing generally. They try to find unusual words to describe things instead of more ordinary words that have the same meaning. There are some words that are almost exclusively used this way. Example, there's no semantic difference between the words "while" and "whilst." But people will still say "whilst" because they like how it sounds vaguely archaic.Â
Now you're starting to touch on writing quirks that actually do require me to hold my tongue, but even so I still wouldn't point this kind of thing out to someone.  I find mostly this is something young people do, or at least I remember doing it a lot when I was younger. It's different from grammatical errors in that mistakes of grammar are unintentional, but this kind of thing is something people go out of their way to do. If you can pin it down to a semantic error then it might be easier to point out to someone.
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