[amohr]

I know it's hard to believe, but there are people who legitimately enjoy finding the exact right word. This is like trashing someone for working on an open source project - they're just doing something they love the best they know how. In this case it's not strategically optimal and finding that out was a (perhaps overdue) shock.

[jiganti]

You are operating from the perspective that the "right word" is the one that the dictionary defines as the most accurate based on the context. If the people you are communicating to will receive the message better if you choose alternative, less correct as far as dictionaries are concerned words, the message will be better received.

I see people make this mistake all the time; it's important to recognize that the ultimate goal of language is to communicate.

[ergo98]

>I know it's hard to believe, but there are people who legitimately enjoy finding the exact right word.

Absolutely. There is an appropriate time and a place for such an exercise, however, and having the cognizance of when and where is useful.

>This is like trashing someone for working on an open source project - they're just doing something they love the best they know how.

I don't think it's anything like that. The submission is about a person who had purportedly been sending out thousands of resumes with nary a bite. Their angle is not "Clearly I'm doing it wrong", but they instead resort to the tried and true "everyone but me is stupid" angle. I don't patronize that thought process because it's the hubris of failure.