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The Grumpy Grammarian

Minimizing Verbal Megalomania and a Penchant for Polysyllabic Verbosity OR "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

Sometimes I read something that looks as if the author constantly referred to a thesaurus while writing.  The apparent goal was to seem profound by substituting the most pretentious words for their simpler cousins.  Often the words are merely near-synonyms and are thus inexact or inappropriate – but the writer is so intent on putting on airs that he or she is unaware that the wording is faulty.  When students write this way, I ask them, "Do you use a thesaurus?"  Then, when they proudly say, "Yes," I comment, "I have two words of advice about your thesaurus – 'Burn it!'"

This advice may seem extreme (I could write draconian, inordinately severe, or uncompromisingly zealous, but extreme will do).  Nevertheless, I am an advocate of Strunk and White's fourteenth rule under "An Approach to Style" in The Elements of Style:  "Avoid fancy words."  "Do not be tempted," this rule states, "by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able."  Strunk and White are quick to point out that simple words are not always preferable to elegant ones and that the "line between the fancy and the plain, between the atrocious and the felicitous, is sometimes alarmingly fine."  However, using the more pretentious word merely because we think it makes us sound more erudite is, quite literally, sophomoric.  (I use sophomoric intentionally because the word sophomore has as its root meaning "a wise fool.")

It is not necessary, for example, to call a fight an altercation, a fire a conflagration, a sickness or ailment a debilitation, or a tool an implement.  There is rarely need to call arms and legs appendages or to refer to a simple house as a residence, abode, or domicile.  We don't need to use masticate when we mean chew, or cogitate when we mean think.  There's no reason to call a shop a retail establishment or to refer to a cook as a culinary practitioner.  Utilize is not necessarily a better word than use.  One does not "author" books; one writes them.  Sorry, but I'm unimpressed when store clerks call themselves "retail consultants" or "associates." 

Many of the words that people choose in an attempt to make themselves look smarter are of Latin derivation.  Although these Latin-based words definitely have their function when used appropriately, they often have Anglo-Saxon counterparts that are more direct and familiar.  We don't need to say that someone circumvented a situation when what we mean is that the person avoided it.  We don't need to declare that someone capitulated when we mean that the person gave up.  We don't need to write about transmitting something when our intention is to say that we sent it.  Calling a paycheck compensatry remuneration for labor or srrvices is both wordy and silly. 

Some trades and professions have specialized jargon – words and phrases used to communicate with others in that field.  Using such language when writing for the general public is not only inappropriate but also confusing.   One reason that the help pages on technology websites are unhelpful is that authors assume that everyone is familiar with the jargon, whereas most people are not.  To them, "geek speak" is a foreign language.  If specialized terms are necessary in communications with general readers (and sometimes there is no alternative), authors should define these terms.  Good technical writers aim for the same clarity and simplicity that marks all good informative writing.

This is not to say that we should assume that our readers lack intelligence.  If a relatively uncommon word suits our purposes better than any other, we should not hesitate to use it.  It's okay to send the reader to the dictionary occasionally.  For instance, a word such as ubiquitous (being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time) may be precisely what we want.  The only near-synonym is omnipresent, which is just as long and doesn't have quite the same tone.  If ubiquitous is the appropriate and precise word for what we want to say, we should use it – not because it flaunts our vocabulary but because it is a perfect fit for our intended meaning.  If it isn't in our vocabulary, we can always write that something "seems to be everywhere at the same time" instead of writing that it is ubiquitous.

Students often claim that they have difficulty expressing themselves in writing because they don't "have the vocabulary" – by which they mean that they don't have a vast mental storehouse of "fancy" words such as ubiquitous.  There's only a tiny bit of truth to that.  They may sometimes need to use roundabout phrases ("seems to be everywhere") because they aren't familiar with the one-word synonym ("ubiquitous").  They may be unable to be as precise or colorful or original as writers with more extensive vocabularies can be.  However, their conviction that they lack the words to express their thoughts clearly and even quite well is false.  After all, they think in words; just about every thought they have has been internally verbalized.  Therefore they "have" the words (i.e., the vocabulary).  The difficulty they have in writing, in "externalizing" ideas, has to do with using the words they already know.  Although expanding their vocabularies is beneficial because it gives them more tools with which to fine-tune and shape their prose, what they need more than fancier tools is the ability to better use the simple tools that they already have.

We can be profound without being pretentious.  Indeed, if we think about it, one of the qualities we may most admire in good writers is their ability to express complex ideas in simple language.  Hardly anything, for example, is more difficult to put into words than profound emotional or spiritual experiences, yet the language of poetry is usually simple.  Its power rests not in its complexity but in its subtlety – its ability to evoke vivid images and to suggest more than the words literally mean.  Really good prose can have, or at least approach, the power of poetry by imitating the simplicity of poetry.

Even professional writers sometimes give in to the temptation to use twenty-dollar words when ten-centers are just as good.  Perhaps this is because, as professionals, they have developed more extensive vocabularies than their readers are likely to have.  The syndicated columnist George Will comes to mind; he apparently never met a polysyllabic word he didn't like.  Indeed, I play a little parlor game when I read his columns.  I underline all the pretentious, long words for which a simpler substitute would serve just as well.  Although sometimes Mr. Will's impressive vocabulary is right on target (no other word is as precise as the one he chose), many times a much simpler and more common word could be used – with no loss whatever in either the literal or suggested meaning.  It is not surprising that highly educated and well-read people often tell me that they gave up reading some of Will's columns because of the "opaque and pretentious wording."

As with sentence structure – where the principal rule of style is variety in length and structure of sentences – one stylistic guideline for diction (word choice) is to vary word choice, preferring simpler words when they express the intended meaning and using less common words only when no better substitutes exist.  Just as short sentences are emphatic, simpler words can have more punch than the more formal ones do.  "This is nonsense" is more emphatic than "This is an irrational illogicality."

Elegance has its place, and sometimes it's appropriate to dress up our ideas in verbal tuxedos.  However, most of us are uncomfortable in wearing formal attire that we're not used to – and it shows.  We are much better off if we dress our ideas in more casual styles, perhaps adding a touch of originality or a dash of color now and then.  Using unsuitable, pretentious words is a bit like wearing an ill-fitting tux.  Instead of making our writing appear suave and sophisticated, these words make it ungainly and awkward.