Grammarranter

I hate words like this.

littoral \LIH-tuh-rul\, adjective:
1. Of, relating to, or on a coastal or shore region, especially a seashore.
2. A coastal region, especially the zone between the limits of high and low tides.

Doesn't it sound lovely? Yes! Great! What a great word. Let's incorporate it into our vocabulary! NO! Because I will be the only one who does it, and then when I use it, everyone will think I'm dumb and mixing it up with literal and of course making no sense when I talk. And then I will get cross at them and they will be impatient with me and it's just not worth it. I have the same problem with consonance, which, as my high school English teacher taught, is alliteration just using consonants (assonance being alliteration with vowels). But not once in my life have I been able to use the word and had someone understand that I was not saying consonants. Spelling it out, and an extra 10 minutes of conversation to explain the one word you decided to throw out usually isn't a welcome addition to the interaction buffet, at least in my area of the world, so there's no point in knowing it. I'm stuck wanting to express myself with my colourful and specific word that is left itching inside me, trapped, unable to be unleashed and set free like the little bird it is and it causes nothing but angst and brain bruises from its poor beating wings. Excuse my overdramatism. I got caught up in the moment.

I had a similar problem that I am still bitter about when I wrote an article for an Irish magazine in Toronto, and I described someone (Paddy Canny, to be specific, if you know him, or of him) as having a snell sense of humour, which means acute, or sharp, but the editors changed it to swell without informing me and it got published that way.
I still haven't forgiven them for it.