Lowest common denominator

I have a rather good vocabulary in my every day language (French). I express myself well when writing professionnal documents. But my boss, very often revises them and changes words and sentence structure. She says that the words I use are too professionnal and wouldn't be understood by everyone. Hum. I'm not talking about a general public article here. These are internal documents for presentation to the board. And the words I use are still very basic vocabulary for an educated and cultivated person - nothing technical or obscure understood only by the initiated. I think that if everybody is always reducing everything to the lowest common denominator - to make sure that even the least educated person around the table will effortlessly understand every single word used - we'll all just turn stupid in the long run. Nobody will learn anything anymore.

When you encounter a new word, most of the time you can «guess» its meaning simply through the contexte where it is used. Once in a while you'll have to ask or fetch a dictionnary. I usually fetch the dictionnary even if I've deduced the meaning, just to get the whole picture of the word... and then I try very hard to use it in a conversation within the next 24 hours to help it stick in my brain !

That habit she has bothers me very much. Sometimes my text is modified so much that I remove my name from the bottom. I am proud of the quality of my writing. I worked hard the get it there and to keep it there. If the text doesn't reflect the quality of my work, I refuse to have my name associated with it.