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After importuning John to pick morphemes out of sesquipedalian words, his friends found out his act was nothing but hokum, grew tetchy, and larruped him.

importune: tran. v. . To beset with insistent or repeated requests; entreat pressingly. 2. Archaic To ask for urgently or repeatedly. 3. To annoy; vex. intran. v. To plead or urge irksomely, often persistently. See synonyms at beg. adj. Importunate.
morpheme: A meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word, such as man, or a word element, such as -ed in walked, that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts.
sesquipedalian: n. A long word. adj. 1. Given to the use of long words. 2. Long and ponderous; polysyllabic. sesquipedal: etymology: Latin ssquipedlis, of a foot and a half in length
hokum: 1. Something apparently impressive or legitimate but actually untrue or insincere; nonsense. 2. A stock technique for eliciting a desired response from an audience.
tetchy: Peevish; testy: “As a critic gets older, he or she usually grows more tetchy and limited in responses” (James Wolcott).
larrup: tran. v. To beat, flog, or thrash. n. A blow.