A rather more positive recollection

Stuff and Nonsense by Amy Cockram is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

I also remember being told by a lecturer in my first year of university that he liked the precision with which I used language.

He was quite young, and I think was probably only just starting to take seminars. He seemed like a nice bloke, although my abiding memory of him is one of sweaty nervousness (his, not mine). His vulnerability meant that I didn't quite have the heart to disillusion him by telling him about my writing strategy.

My approach to writing an essay for university was to have a favourite word, and try to force it into the subject matter. I can only remember two of the easiest ones - getting the word "revenant" into an essay on "Dracula," and the word "oleaginous" into an essay on "Twelfth Night."

I still love the word oleaginous.