hugger-mugger: secret; also, muddled, disorderly.

The truest thing one can say about long words is that they add to the hugger mugger of language. Academics do it all the time: throwing words around to prove how very clever they are. The confounding language can cause, and the coded nature of these lesser known words allows groups to maintain their distinction from everybody else. Another example would be the language of Polari, used by gay men in the twentieth century to talk in public about private matters. The beauty of language is epitomized in Orwell's 1984, where the ruling powers have controlled the populace by restricting their speech to the extent that dissidence isn't in their vocabulary, and thus impossible for them to conceive of in thought. People become like aliens in a new country, where they don't speak the language and are forced to rely on baser, cruder means of communication. Imagine how slow life would be if everything were conveyed by charades.