An old roommate once discovered the word “bottleneck.” He used it constantly for about a week.
“I was late to work today. I95 was a total bottleneck. When I got in, the phone lines were jammed. It was a complete bottleneck. When I left for lunch, I couldn’t get out of the parking lot. It was a bottleneck. Then I went to Wendy’s for lunch. The line was huge. Total bottleneck.”
Words I’m comfortable using in casual conversation but happen to make me sound smart:
juxtaposition
ostensibly
obsequious
anti-disestablishmentarianism
ameliorate
tangential
defenstrate
dictatorial
punitive
impunity
y muchos mas…
pedantic
All I had to do in the past was pronounce pen or think correctly.
**pravnik **has it - clarity and confidence are much bigger indicators of intelligence than using 10-cent words. I spend more time trying to strip fancy words *out *of what I say than I do trying to insert them in.
I must admit, the OP seems funny coming from someone with a username CheeseDonkey. Just makes me snicker, thinking of trying to insert *that *word into a conversation…
I hate when people contort a normal everyday simple sentence to sound smart or more “official.”
He [del]proceeded to[/del] [del]operate[/del] drove the [del]vehicle[/del] car [del]prior to[/del] before fastening his seat belt.
I see it most often on People’s Court and similar shows.
Eosinophilic fasciitis!
Carbuncular trollopsy!!
Oh, well, in that case, I hope you will not object if I offer my most enthusiastic contrafribularities.
I refer to that as cop-speak.
well aren’t “big words” big because they’re super-specific? i could say something is “spotlessly clean”, or i can say “immaculate”. instead of saying i have “a lot of a good thing”, i have a “surplus”. a healthy vocabulary does indeed make things clearer… as long as your audience has the same vocabulary.
OK, now I want this for my battle cry. “Carbuncular trollopsy!” Sounds like something that’s following my armies, anyway.
That made me giggle.
I just noticed that I asked this question without affixing a question mark. Durrr, stupid me.
Anyway, prolix is a good word. Words for “short” (like curt, laconic, etc.) tend to do the trick as well.
Darn you anyway.
new clurr.
If it was good enough for Jimmy Carter, by damned its good enough for me. I feel embiggened just thinking about it. Though that might just be me lusting about sumptin.
Yup - “Judge Judy” often has people on it doing this - for the love of all that’s holy, it’s just a car, not a “vee-hick-ul.”
Oh yeah - good call. Cops and the perps both doing it.
I don’t recall using words to try to sound smart - it usually happens the other way, choosing not to use a word because I think it’s a little too high-falutin’ for the crowd I’m talking to and they’ll think I’m putting on airs. I’ve started caring less about this as I get older - if you don’t know a word, just ask me.
I try not to use sesquipedalian verbiage in my quotidian life to demonstrate my erudition.
Oh, Lordy…I just had the following discussion with a coworker not more than an hour ago:
KB: So, your boss seemed a little reticent about the corporate visit yesterday,how did it go?
CW: Oh, KB, you know I’m dumb, tell me what that means!
KB: It means she was reluctant to talk about how the visit went.
CW: OK, now what does THAT mean?
KB: It means she didn’t say much when I called and asked her how it went.
CW: Oh, okay! Yeah, it went fine!
What is it with cop-speak? It’s a man, not a ‘male person’.