Verbage

I don't like the word "elucidate." Somehow it's just too... wordy. It's clunky, unhandy, and unevocative, which isn't itself a word, but by god, it should be.

That said, whenever I reach for the words "explain," "reveal," "unravel" or "illuminate" — all, I might add, more punchy, rhythmic and understandable than the term in question — I unfailingly come up with (prepare yourselves) elucidate.

Ick.

If you say it out loud often enough, it starts sounding like name for a poison. (Just searched my hard drive. The last and only paper I ever used the word in received a B-. Had I only realized...)