Short answer: Because big words have more precise, narrower definitions, which leads to less of the kinds of ambiguity that smart people try to avoid.
Also, citing the above example of “escape velocity”, that is a recognized term among scientific colleagues, and its use signals that the speaker is knowledgeable enough to know that. In a sense, it is something like a secret handshake among insiders. Rather like football fans using words like reception and encroachment and plane, with the understanding that everyone in the conversation knows the context.
Judicious application of appropriate vocaulary makes for an erudite blah blah blah, ran out of steam.
What’s most important is a small vocabulary is most certainly a sign of low intelligence. Not that I’m referring to any specific President, you understand.
Someone’s vocabulary reflects their environment. If one reads a lot of “high brow” stuff and is surrounded by “high brow” speakers, they are inevitably going to incorporate “high brow” words into their speech.
People who write for a living also tend to reach for “fancier” words than people who don’t. I do a lot of technical writing, which is typically low on the flowery fluffy words you find in literature. But I still need to use sophisticated language sometimes. Words like “concomitant” or “heterogeneous” have simpler synonyms. But if you’ve already used “associated” or “non-uniform” eleventy-billion times in a paragraph, the strategic insertion of GRE words may be called for.
I’ve had to wean more than one writer off using either words they themselves didn’t understand, or a very obscure meaning for a word which had many others. “A meaning which was used once by Lord Byron in a poem written when he was 15 is not one I expect our highly-international audience to be familiar with. Change it. Now.”
But both those and the people using malapropisms are easy to spot: the sentence doesn’t really make sense as written/said. And yes, I just used a big word When the people using it are using it to be precise it’s like what you said about Pinker: the meaning is crystal clear, no need to dig into Byron’s bibliography…
(There was one guy who did use a meaning that yes, apparently had been used by Byron, once. And by nobody other than English Literature students, since.)
That would be Randall Munroe. In a similar vein is the Simple English Wiki. Although not required, it is recommended that articles in it use the same “ten hundred” word vocabulary Munroe did or even the more restrictive Basic English vocabulary of 850 words.
And just to be meta, here is the SEW article on XKCD.
I know what you mean, but I’ve wrestled with this idea for some time. One thing that becomes apparent when you read authors from centuries past is that they frequently used ten words where two would suffice. Sentences were often much longer and commas and semicolons connected numerous lengthy clauses. Was this just a function of style and common practice or were these authors attempting to put on intellectual airs?
Or maybe this kind thing is a result of survivor bias - the samples of, say, Victorian writing style that that are held out as being representative are the ones that were retained because of their remarkable verbosity? (“well lookee hyar Jebidiah, this feller shore wrote purty, didn’t he? I’m a gonna keep this here letter…”)
I’m not an expert in this area. I wish Pinker would chime in.
It’s my general impression that people who use unusual (in the ears of the average listener) words fall into three categories:
People who read a lot and are quite used to such words. Some of the words might just happen to be “buzzwords of the day,” but the individual does see them on a regular basis and uses them properly. These people can say “corruscating” with a straight face.
People who are striving to use these words properly because they are simply pretentious. The best example is when I talk about crepuscular feeders or axillary odors.
People who have a “Word-A-Day” calendar. These are the ones who comment on how their coffee and creamer are unusually miscible today.
I’m a voracious reader myself, so I don’t usually have a problem with understanding these words, but they are usually $100 bills when a quarter was needed.
Your OP is like asking why a great painter would choose a gradient of blue when there is a perfectly serviceable stock shade of blue. Listening to an eloquent speaker is akin to looking at a beautiful painting.
Brother, please take temporary custody of my canister of ale and Behold! In one hand I hold the stolen spark of Prometheus. Observe now the effulgence that shall transpire when the emission of my intestinal aether meets its combustion…
There is so much to unpack in this. The use of the word pretentiousness, and “the rest of us”? It sounds like you’re playing the anti-intellectualism card?
Are there some people who use big word to try to sound smarter? Sure, that exists, but I’d say it’s a very small sliver of people. Some poor souls have a bad habit of it. A million years ago, the show In Living Color had a bit where the character used big word gibberish. It was funny because we’ve all met someone like that. In addition, there’s a strain of goof-ball hipster nerds who like to talk like they’re from the 1800’s, OK you be you, and good luck getting a date. But in normal day to day life, not so much.
But, just because you hear someone use a word that you are not sure about, it doesn’t mean they are doing it to get the better of you, or to show off. If you think they are doing it to try to get the better of you, that says more about you than it does about them.
There are a lot of people who are fans of reading and fans of words, so they naturally use words they know. They may accidentally use them in front of people that are not in the same place they are in terms of being fans of reading and words, but that’s not really their fault. And I would say it’s kinda offensive to call them out as NOT being part of “the rest of us.”
Apparently, during one broadcast, Buckley used the word irenic, and someone asked him why he didn’t just say “peaceful” - “I desired the extra syllable” was his reply.
I was accused of the same thing when I was in the military. I grew up loving books and read voraciously - oops, I mean “a lot” - from a very early age. Reading = vocabulary unless you limit yourself to comic strips. A friend in the military took me to task, telling me that everyone thought I was talking down to them and that I thought I was smarter than everyone else. While the latter was probably true in that particular milieu, the former was not. It’s just the way I speak.
Not that I’m smart, but when I use big words I do it because it feels good, kinda like stretching my legs. The odd thing is that it’s a similarly nice feeling when I speak neighborhood vernacular and know it’s just right.
In my life, I’ve met a number of people who can nail just about anything in their own clumsy way. The important thing is that they use few words and are unambiguous. I think it’s an art form.
That seems to be the problem whenever these subjects come up. The folk who see you as different take the difference as an affront, and impose the affront on you. It works in all sorts of ways in society.
When the people using it are using it to be precise it’s like what you said about Pinker: the meaning is crystal clear, no need to dig into Byron’s bibliography…