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My father, who was brilliant, gave me the same lesson when I was young and learning English (I'd been raised in Japan while he was doing work in China and Vietnam). I was learning as swiftly as I could, and was fascinated with the so-called $10 words. My father was normally hard as nails and kinda scary too, but this particular day he was more kind. One day after I'd said something to him with five five-syllable words in one sentence, he gently asked me "Do you know what language is for?" After my just looking at him for a moment because this was obviously a trick question, he added "It's for _communication_." That was enough to very clearly make his point and I've remembered it for thirty years. ^_^