Author Vocabulary Calendar vs Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness

How do you distinguish between these two tropes when placing examples?

Courtesy links: Author Vocabulary Calendar, Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.

Author Vocabulary Calendar is when an author uses long and/or uncommon words in their work in a way that is awkward or misplaced, such that one suspects they had a thesaurus or "word of the day" calendar open and decided to use the big words they found just because. It is an authorship trope. It can apply In-Universe if there is a character in a work who is a writer. It's generally applied to written works, but can also exist in oratory, often indicating that the author lacks an editor.

Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness is when a character in a work speaks in overly elaborate, florid, or scientific terms in circumstances where ordinary speech would do just as well. It marks them as (a) smart but socially inept, (b) trying to sound smarter than they are, (c) exaggerating for comedic or sarcastic effect. It can apply in any medium that uses dialogue.

Another way of looking at the distinction is that, if it appears in prose, it's Author Vocabulary Calendar. If it appears in dialogue, it's Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.

edited 29th Nov '17 11:44:28 AM by Fighteer

It seems that Author Vocabulary Calendar is about writers who like to use big words, while Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness is about specific characters who have the use of big words as a personality quirk.

So if everyone including the narrator speaks this way, it's the former, but if only certain characters do this, it's the latter.

EDIT:

edited 29th Nov '17 11:44:43 AM by Zuxtron