Learning new words also makes me feel smarter than I am, and it impresses people who are certainly smarter than I am.

So it's always exciting - or should I say "exhilarating," "rousing," or "stimulating" - when Merriam-Webster, the folks that put the dictionary together, announce which new words are being added to the dictionary each year.

This year, there are about 100 new entries, and they reveal, not surprisingly, that we are becoming more technology-savvy. We also appear to be more interested that ever in medicine.

"Wing nut" is one of the new entries this year. A wing nut is "one who advocates extreme measures or changes." A webinar is "an online seminar."

"Pescatarian" was also added. It's "a vegetarian whose diet includes fish." I'm glad this word was added because someone who eats fish can't call themselves a vegetarian unless the definition of fish has changed, and surely it has not.

Obviously, someone had to be the first person to use these new words in the context in which they were added to the dictionary. That person used the word, and other picked it up and eventually it became accepted in mainstream society. Thus, it gets added to the dictionary.

As an English major, I believe I possess the necessary background to help create new words. In fact, I'm going to petition the Merriam-Webster folks to add "porcinatarian" to the dictionary next year. I consider myself one of these people, someone who enjoys cooking and eating various parts of the pig, especially barbecue.

Our language can't remain static. Times are changing and language must evolve with it. The Internet, for instance, is a relatively new phenomenon, and we have to have words that describe it.

But I wonder sometimes about all the new words that get added. After a while, the dictionary becomes like your garage or your basement, full of stuff you never use because you keep buying new stuff.

The Webster's New World Dictionary that sits on my desk has some 160,000 entries over 1,716 pages. Yet the average person only knows about 15,000 words. A highly educated person may only know about 40,000 words.

And only about 2,000 words are needed for our daily use, and these words make up most of our communication with each other.

Even if I were egotistical enough to consider myself a highly educated person with a vocabulary of 40,000 words, that would mean there are 120,000 words in my dictionary that I don't know. Suddenly, I don't feel so smart.

So maybe, just like you need to get up this morning and clean out the garage, we need to clean out the dictionary. I'm sure there are words there we don't need anymore.

I'd get rid of the word "ecru" immediately. Ecru is just a high-faluting way of saying "beige," and beige ain't no high-faluting color. So ecru goes.

We could also get rid of all the $5 words people use to sound superior to the people to whom they are speaking.

I knew a man once at my previous job. He was extremely bright. But he purposely used long, complicated words when simpler words might have made him more understandable.

He would say things like this, "Let your extemporaneous communications possess a clarified conciseness without theoretical bombast." when all he really meant was, "Talk in plain English."

Some might call a person like that, given to the use of long words, a "sesquipedalian."

The rest of us just called him "pretentious."

Mitch Clarke is executive editor of The Times. His column appears Sundays in The Times. Read previous columns at gainesvilletimes.com. Originally published August 10, 2008.