What's the most pretentious word?

"Empathy", because people usually confuse it for sympathy and try to use it as a be all and end all argument.

Followed closely by "disproportionate".

Whom.

It serves no purpose other than giving English majors a way to show off their degree.

Samsquanch wrote:

I think it is "utilize". Why not just say "use"?

Any other good ones out there?

In some situations I agree, but not in all. Sometimes "use" can have a negative connotation.

In a business meeting, when talking about worker productivity, these two sound very different.

"We're not properly utilizing our talent"

"We're not properly using our talent"

"Utilize" implies optimization, whereas "use" has a slight "exploit" connotation.

"as well" instead of "also"

just reeks of "I'm trying hard to sound smart"

Tripe

"Penultimate" is pretty pretentious, especially since 75 percent of the people who use is use it incorrectly.

iteration

Bourgeoisie.

Pretentious is certainly in the running for that title.

Mellifluous

It's worse when "leverage" takes the place or "use". Especially since I work in investments where leverage sometimes has a more important meaning.

Regarding "penultimate" identified by someone, that one gets a pass since it is a track term!

For pretentious, I always think the worst are phrases that have been in use for while, but then you start hearing it a lot and suddenly is is some genius phrase "internet of things" "the cyber".

progressive

"pseudo_________"

Lactate threshold

Coaches who throw out exercise physiology terms and act like they know of which they speak.

Ironic - a word that is frequently mis-used by people too lazy to look up the definition but trying to sound intelligent.

Surreal - the most overused word by people who just discovered it, trying to sound intelligent.

uncouth

"Whilst"

People think it makes them sound smart, but it actually makes them sound like they haven't been out of the basement in a few years.

I thought of another one, "Facilitate". A lot of these depend on context, and who is saying it.

Last night I heard someone say ". . . an organic homage to the genre . . .".

At that point I consciously uncoupled from the conversation.