# Why do (smart) people use big words? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 26, 2017, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862 "2017-10-26T01:31:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/61 "2017-10-27T14:38:42Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > I do that, when, for example, I’m speaking to children and old people. When I’m speaking to another normal adult, I don’t assume that they’re linguistically deficient. If they prove to be so, I can adapt. But it’s a “them” problem, not a “me” problem. Nope, it’s a communication issue and does not necessarily have anything to do with age. “Normal” adults read, on average, at a [9th grade level](http://www.impact-information.com/impactinfo/literacy.htm). > [@](#): > > The results show the average adult reads at the 9th-grade level. This accounts for the fact that the popular blockbuster novels are written at the 7th grade level. People like to read recreationally two grades below their actual reading skill. The average newspaper is written at the 11th-grade level, the tolerable limit for a 9th-grade reader. It is always the responsibility of the communicator to ensure the message is understood (otherwise why bother communicating at all?), and that requires above average intelligence: > [@](#): > > For these reasons, experts recommend writing documents intended for the general public at the 9th-grade level, health and safety information at the 5th-grade level. Knowing the average reading level of your audience, however, is not the same as writing for that audience. That takes study, practice, and discipline. It is very difficult to write for a class of readers not one’s own. If I am speaking to a group of industry peers, I’m going to use a substantially different set of words than if communicating the same information to a group who is less familiar with the industry. I’m sticking with the simplified version of all the above - smart people communicate on the level of their audience. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/62 "2017-10-27T15:09:39Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I dunno. “Defenestration” is like the Millard Fillmore of big words–the one that everyone knows because it’s delightfully obscure. Well, that and the Defenestration of Prague for the history buffs. A gentlemen is defenestrated. Poor people are just thrown out the damn window! ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/63 "2017-10-27T15:18:01Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > A gentlemen is defenestrated. > > Poor people are just thrown out the damn window! I actually know this one (i.e. what defenestrated is) because it was used in The Malloreon. 😛 Everytime I hear the term I think of the clubfooted one… ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/64 "2017-10-27T15:38:22Z")
> [@swampspruce](#): > > Words are a toolbox … And, while a skilled craftsman can when necessary do a passable job with dull tools, he’ll generally prefer to select carefully from the sharp ones. And his results will reflect the difference. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/65 "2017-10-27T16:40:23Z")
All true. The problem of course is one of casting pearls before swine. When the audience can’t tell the difference between fine craftsmanship and a hack job, AND the whole and entire point of the exercise is to give the audience what it wants/needs, how much is finely honed craftsmanship helpful and how much is it useless or harmful? Back in around the 1850s there was a fashion in very early consumer product design to add cherubs and other decorations to things like scissors and sewing machines. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32677/32677-h/images/i112.png](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32677/32677-h/images/i112.png). Designers went to a lot of extra expense and effort attempting to speak an intricate and highly decorated design language they thought the audience needed. Turns out they were wrong. Simple, robust, and cheap carried the day. Is a doghouse really better if it has fine birds’-eye maple inlays? Does the dog care? I personally enjoy a large vocabulary and the long complex sentences that go with it. I’m not convinced my writing is actually better for that in many cases. Rather the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/66 "2017-10-27T16:59:44Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I’m not convinced my writing is actually better for that in many cases. Rather the opposite. When I’m writing fiction a large vocabulary is _literally_ a toolchest - and you’re absolutely right that the fanciest tool is not always the tool you want for the job. I control my vocabulary very specifically to impart the correct level of ‘intellectualism’ to the prose. (Which, in my books, varies somewhat depending on the point of view character.) ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/67 "2017-10-27T17:37:31Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Subject-verb agreement is where you really separate the sheep from the goats. > > 1. should be “words that communicate” (singular) > > 2. should be “those…[who] do so with precision” (plural) > > It’s a run-on sentence, but here it is rewritten anyway: _Another vote btw expressing admiration for those with the level of smarts that they know and think in the longer or more obscure words that communicate that which would otherwise take a sentence and who do so with precision and who are skillful enough at actual communication that they correctly assess and know how to play to the room they are in._ 🙂 [bleat]Yeah, not my best writing there.[/bleat] And educate me here some more please. The “sheep from the goats” reference? A parallelism to separating “the men from the boys” or an allusion to the New Testament parable? Either it seems being the sheep is to be preferred but dang, they are dumb. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/68 "2017-10-27T17:41:53Z")
I celebrate people that use sesquipedalian words for their perspicacity. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/69 "2017-10-27T17:50:40Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > 🙂 > > [bleat]Yeah, not my best writing there.[/bleat] > > And educate me here some more please. The “sheep from the goats” reference? A parallelism to separating “the men from the boys” or an allusion to the New Testament parable? Either it seems being the sheep is to be preferred but dang, they are dumb. I dunno. I just repeat random shit that I hear. 😛 A smarter person than I am will have to answer. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/70 "2017-10-27T18:10:32Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Best be careful with that. They will be picking your nursing home and they have very, very long memories. 😃 They also have big, big vocabularies. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/71 "2017-10-27T23:02:06Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > When I’m writing fiction a large vocabulary is _literally_ a toolchest :dubious: Sometimes I would reconsider using a particular word, but it was when a co-worker told me “analogous” was a big word, I said f— it. If that’s a big word, I’m screwed trying to figure out what to edit; I’ll just say what I want to say. ---
**Author:** ![scootergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@scootergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scootergirl)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/72 "2017-10-28T00:19:52Z")
Supercalafragalisticexpialdocious. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/73 "2017-10-28T00:35:45Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Using a larger vocabulary is correlated with socioeconomic class and with level of education, but I’m not aware that it’s correlated with intelligence. That might be true for some abstract concept of ‘true innate intelligence’ that’s by definition independent of socioeconomic class and education. But in the real world of tests used to measure ‘intelligence’, it correlates with socioeconomic class and level of education. But I’m not sure I agree _trying_ to use ‘big words’ correlates that strongly with socioeconomic/education. Because IME it’s common in US society nowadays for people of lower socioeconomic/educational backgrounds to _try_ to use ‘big words’ if anything more than well educated people would, but slightly incorrectly and/or where are they are not actually expressing any useful nuance. That’s fed back in some cases to the ‘big’ word becoming common. For example it wasn’t intellectual eggheads popularizing ‘perpetrator’, it was the cops. And when a dog gets on the tracks in the NY Subway they announce a delay due to ‘a canine’. It’s not the faculty at NYU driving that. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/74 "2017-10-28T00:53:49Z")
Honestly, I just get tired. I get tired of self-editing my speech. I remarked today about a “strange sartorial choice.” I caught hell for using a word no one else understood. How am I supposed to know that? I mean, what am I supposed to do, interview everyone I speak to and assess their literacy level? How exactly am I supposed to cope with that? Do I have to spend half a conversation being a human dictionary? Yeah, I’m a little bitter about today. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/75 "2017-10-28T01:35:53Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Honestly, I just get tired. I get tired of self-editing my speech. I remarked today about a “strange sartorial choice.” I caught hell for using a word no one else understood. How am I supposed to know that? I mean, what am I supposed to do, interview everyone I speak to and assess their literacy level? How exactly am I supposed to cope with that? Do I have to spend half a conversation being a human dictionary? > > Yeah, I’m a little bitter about today. Aw, don’t sweat it. Just talk the way you want to and they can just get over it. Kill 'em all with big words and let God sort 'em out. (Apologies to Chuck Norris.) Many years ago when I was a cute 25-year old, I took my 1970 VW beetle to a garage, and as the Joe Six-Pack mechanic was poking around in the engine, I peered over his shoulder and said, “I understand that the spark plugs in a Volkswagen are notoriously inaccessible.” He swiveled around and stared as if I had sprouted an extra head. Hell, that’s the way the thought came to me and that’s the way I said it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/76 "2017-10-28T01:37:24Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I celebrate people \*\*that \*\*use sesquipedalian words for their perspicacity. Bolding mine. Might that read better with “who” instead of “that”? But not “whom”. That would be both pretentious \*and \*grammatically wrong. As **ThelmaLou** almost said up-thread, it’s more important to use words rightly than to choose them fancily. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/77 "2017-10-28T01:46:45Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > … > As **ThelmaLou** almost said up-thread, it’s more important to use words rightly than to choose them fancily. 😃 I love the sub-till-ity of that compliment. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/78 "2017-10-28T02:02:22Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Honestly, I just get tired. I get tired of self-editing my speech. I remarked today about a “strange sartorial choice.” I caught hell for using a word no one else understood. I think you have to have a sense and know your audience. “Sartorial,” to me, is pretty clearly in SAT word territory. I’ve never heard anyone but my college educated or high school honors English friends use it, and even then, it’s pretty unlikely to come up in conversation. I use it occasionally because one of my high school English teacher’s catch phrases was “you are the quintessence of sartorial disarray” when remarking on somebody’s slovenly appearance, and that word became engrained in me. I personally think it’s useful to adjust one’s speech to the situation and audience (code-switch), but it does sometimes feel a bit prejudicial and condescending to assume certain people won’t understand you, such that you adjust your vocabulary down. That said, for me, it’s usually adjusting my speech “up” in the proper circumstances, since I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood with parents that speak Polish, so my day-to-day vocabulary was of the garden variety. It’s not until much later in life (high school and college) that I really started acquiring a significant vocabulary. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/79 "2017-10-28T03:05:46Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I think you have to have a sense and know your audience. … Easier said than done and it must be noted that such is _work_. Judging the audience other than by way of jumping to conclusions often by way of stereotypes is a challenge. It is nice to be able to relax with friends, to not have to do that work, and to just talk. And busting someone’s chops because they used a word you did not understand seems more like a sign of insecurity mixed with anti-intellectualism than anything else. Sometimes though, at least when in doubt, it is prudent to use simpler words as the default, so long as we do not come off as condescending. Less human dictionaries than human thesauri … replacing the more obscure or sesquipedalian choices for more commonly understood words that do not, _in the context_, call attention to themselves rather than to the thoughts being communicated. A bit different than how we used thesauri in High School in that Calvinesque manner to find the bigger words that impressed while hiding the fact that the was no there there to the actual ideas. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862/80 "2017-10-28T03:14:01Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Easier said than done and it must be noted that such is _work_. Maybe I’m just used to it, but I don’t find it all that difficult. Like I said, sometimes I feel a bit bad about it, because within a few minutes of talking to someone, I naturally settle into a certain vocabulary, so I’m making subconscious judgements. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-smart-people-use-big-words/799862.md?page=5)