Word of the Day

[Bookworm]

How about discombobulate. An author I like to read uses this word a lot in his books. I'd never heard of it before then, and this wasn't too long ago. It certainly discombobulated me, that's for sure! 

That's actually kind of funny. In my main go-to guides for writing, "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, and "On Writing" by Stephen King, both warn about using long, unknown words, and both use "discombobulated" as an example. I'm not sure if King used it directly, although he referred to The Elements of Style a lot and discombobulated was a total no-no.

 
This doesn't surprise me at all. The author I was talking about was China Mieville. He loves going against the grain and challenging the norms of established writing etiquette.
He goes out of his way to play around with language sometimes, which can make his work a difficult read, but if you persevere you eventually get into the flow. He's actually a great writer. I love his books.