Extremely well said. I’ve been reading this thread trying to decide why some things are obviously pretentious and this is it.
I wouldn’t say that the use of British English by an American in context or a humorous way is pretentious. When someone goes out of their way to use it out of context, it sounds affected to my ears. Same thing with British pronunciations, even if uttered in an American accent.
Even as a lefty, the overpronunciation of Spanish words is grating to my ears. It seems as is perpetrators go out of their way to do it, pausing ever so slightly before and after the word. Why Spanish and words of Spanish origin is subject to overpronunciation, and not words with origins in other languages, I don’t know; maybe it’s a way of showing that you have solidarity with la gente or something like that.
But “précis” is not a random obscure French word, it’s common English terminology in the context that Lakai encountered it, and there are [del]nuanced[/del] subtle connotations that distinguish a précis from a simple summary.
“Précis” is a common enough word that a law student that went out of their way to avoid it in general conversation (“I have to finish writing a sort of summary, but I’ll make it down to the pub if I can”) runs the risk of being perceived as condescending, in my opinion.
If course, if this law student was referring to the “précis” in the TV Guide for last Thursday’s *Big Bang Theory, then I’ll allow that they were being pretentious. Unless this point is clarified, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they were using the word in a way that you would expect a law student to use it, unless this point is clarified.
I disagree that its a particularly common word (I, personally have never heard it before today) and I disagree that its ever wrong to speak in the most simple manner possible, and, having graduated law school in 2009, I disagree that law students are in any way enouraged to use the most complex vocabulary they know (quite the opposite) and finally, I disagree that it was a proper word choice: the summary at the top of a research paper is an abstract and the summary at the top of a court case is a syllabus.
Whoawhoawhoa guy/buddy/friend! I’m ignorant about the word, but rationally so. I’m even studying for the GRE, and have yet to encounter that word. “'round these parts” is the South-eastern US. Could that be why? I dunno.
I most certainly don’t think that people with small vocabularies are dumb. I think that’s a pretentious thing to think. I bet there’s plenty of idiot savants who can throw around 50-cent words as though they were confetti or cigarette butts- don’t mean nothing.
I really wouldn’t put it down to overestimating our intelligence if my teachers called an abstract a précis. Now if he was a visiting teacher of some sort, sure. But I know my teachers and they know me. Deliberate, unnecessary complication is one of the many signs that you are pretentious (FYI, the zodiac sign of pretentiousness is a college professor with leather elbow patches).
No, vocabulary =/= intelligence. I have great respect/admiration for the grunge community. I am implying that grunge fans know less about ennui than they do angst.
Fair enough. I am not an academic, and I am surprised to learn that it’s possible to complete any form of post-secondary education (much less law school) without this word ending up in your vocabulary. I would have expected that most people (who read) would pick it up as a matter of course before very long. (I realize that this sounds like derision, but rather than trying to find a way to rephrase it I will just assure that it’s not meant that way. Maybe its use varies by region?)
General agreement here, but again, surprise that this is considered an exotic word, and not simply equivalent with “summary.”
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I may be corrected, but I don’t think that “précis” and “abstract” are inter-changable terms. If someone says “abstract” I would expect a much shorter summary, attached to a work intended to give someone who might be interested in reading it a very general idea of its contents.
If someone says “précis,” I would expect a much more exhaustive piece of writing - a detailed essay which condenses the essential points of another work. I would expect that it touches on all of the main points and presents a greater level of detail, and I would expect that it has been written as an exercise to demonstrate that the author has thoroughly understood what they have read.
I have 2 grad degrees including a JD and I’ve never even seen the word let alone heard it - and I pride myself on making an effort to improve my vocabulary.
It may be something used in a “niche market”, like curriculum vita. If you’re looking for a job as a programmer, you send someone a resume. If you’re a post-doc looking to do basic research, you send a CV.
Not to imply that my experience is in any way relevant to the question since it’s purely anecdotal, but it would definitely surprise me to find that the word is in any respect “common”.
Wirklich? So if I eigentlich litter meinen Post mit random Deutsch, you think, “wow, what a super smart sophisticated person! Where’s my Langenscheit’s??” I did study it, so you know.
Or do you think, “What the hell was the point of that?”
If a law student used "precis"when speaking to laypeople (which I’m pretty sure Lakai is), you wouldn’t consider that pretentious? Especially when most lay people don’t know what it means?
I’m in medicine and we’re taught never, ever to use jargon with our patients. If I was being tested and I told a patient I suspected “hepatobiliary obstruction” I would be severely marked down if not failed.
I’m also a law student. 
Haha, okay, sorry Lakai. :). Are you a freshman student or have you never heard that word before because it’s sufficiently obscure even within law?
I wonder if “résumé” was considered to be pretentious before every American heard it and the accents were dropped? Oddly enough, it also means “summary”. Why don’t you apply to a job using a summary of your career, or an abstract containing the most relevant points?
(Ok, I’m not really picking on you, nor do I expect a serious answer, but I do think this is a funny example!)
Also, at least in Anglophone Québec* (and very probably Ontario and perhaps the rest of Canada, IME), the terms “résumé” and “CV” have largely become interchangeable (whether or not they ought to be is a whole other issue). So if I’m sending in a document summarizing my education and skills in order to land a non-academic job, I’m as likely as not to call it a CV as résumé, as are the employers asking for it. If I come to the States and use the word in my vocabulary that comes to mind fastest, will I come across as pretentious? You have no idea how often I’ve caught myself using a French word today, and having this thread topic pop into my head!
*Is that accent pretentious? It’s reflexive when I type, but I wouldn’t want to offend anyone with it!
I’m in my third year. Round here it’s called an abstract. No one calls it a precis.
And at least two posters with JDs in this thread haven’t heard of the word before, so I don’t feel too bad.
So, the word precis is pretty obscure, then
Depending on who you ask.
Well, if a few lawyers on this board have not heard the term, I would seem pretty obscure within law at least. . .
Well, I think there’s a difference between randomly breaking out into German and using an established word. Precis happens to be a word that people do use in English. Do you think someone’s being pretentious if they go to a cafe when they could say coffeehouse?
Yup. Context was around automatic bank payments: weekly, fortnightly, monthly… and getting confused looks.
Fortnight, derived from “fourteen nights”, is an interesting omission from mainstream American usage (IMHO) as it’s an old word (from OE pre-12th C) and many times it seems that US-English has retained older terms and usage after they have subsequently fallen out of use in British-English (from which NZ-English is a fairly recent branch) whereas fortnight seems to go against the flow.
It would be interesting to know if it had fallen out of favour / out of use during the 17th-18th centuries and then come back into general UK use after the breakaway of US-English. (Well… interesting to me at least). 
Again though, it has everything to do with audience. For a niche group of people, precis is a recognized word. For most people, it’s not.
I’d say cafe is a much more recognized word, and I think also has a different meaning today than coffeehouse, in English.
What about someone, Kansas born and bred, who always used lavatory instead of restroom or bathroom? Wouldn’t you find it strange? And lavatory is a much more recognized word that precis.
It’s not a false friend: false friends seem to mean the same thing, but do not. This is a different problem, a word which is less common than another synonym.
Also, I do speak with enough American fluency to be mistaken for American by Americans, and English is not the native language of every native-born American.