English is often cited as an unusual language for the word count it has. What English has done is load a lot of connotations that in other languages might show in phrases or idioms into the words themselves. In the thesaurus, "conflagration" and "fire" are synonyms, but in fact they don't mean quite the same thing. One is a thing you might cook marshmallows over and the other certainly is not.
Those in the second category can identify those in the first with a glance. Sometimes you can even see them flinch if you're looking at them at the right time, when someone claims to have roasted their marshmallows over a conflagration.
The author is a professional writer and a professor, presumably of English or Writing. She comes by it honestly. If any of the vocabulary in that piece struck me on first reading (before I read your comment), I actually thought she was talking down to her students when she told the story about Mary.
(I am sure Muphry's Law is in full effect for this post.)