$5 Words

[Lincsong]

One time I had a person tell me; "why do you have to talk in such a way as to remind others how much smarter you are then they?" lol lol lol Made no sense to me whatsoever.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Intent is everything.

If someone is using "fancy words" in order to make a listener feel less educated, then that speaker deserves the wrath he/she receives.

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[Lincsong]

Intent is everything.

If someone is using "fancy words" in order to make a listener feel less educated, then that speaker deserves the wrath he/she receives.

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I'm glad I don't "intend" much.

 

[Cobden]

I think I agree that it depends on intent, and you can usually tell if people are being elitist; one highfalutin word is okay, a string of them not. I often get accused of elitism myself, yet most of the time I don't really think about it. I tend to use "ergo" instead of "therefore", and some just come from the region I originate from in the UK, e.g. "whilst" instead of "while" and "amongst" instead of "among"

 

[Haversack]

Mojave Jack wrote in the Dumbest Comment thread in the Hats Department:

"Outr?©? Haversack, please report to the Observation Bar at your earliest convenience."

Well, here I am and let me warn you that I grew up on Gilbert and Sullivan pattersongs and can use alliteration, meter, and the mot juste as soon as spit. I can and will use words calculated in Dollars, Marks, or Guineas. Anyone who has a problem with that had best read some Gibbon followed with some Sabatini. Then we can talk.

Reading the rest of all this, I am reminded of a line from that classic send-up of the movie Western, _Blazing Saddles_. I don't want to offend the hospitality of the house so I will only allude to it. It was spoken by Taggart, (played by Slim Pickens), to Hedy Lamarr, (played by Harvey Korman), complementing him on his use of expensive-sounding words.

Haversack.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Then we can talk.

Dr. Johnson is in da house!

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[Feraud]

I wish someone would pay me five dollars every time I use a fancy word!

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lol I would still be broke...


The debate should not be is "plain speakin' " better than fancy, five dollar words. As has been pointed out in this thread, both styles have their pros and cons. What we read here is an insecure person who chose to take Senator Jack to task for his phraseology! That fellow obviously sidetracked the conversation and failed miserably in the art of rhetoric.

 

[Haversack]

Vetting one's own spoken vocabulary is sometimes neccesary, (and difficult), as intent is not always correctly perceived. I found this particulary so when I had a platoon in the Army back in the early 1980s. Being a shavetail fresh out of college and given command of a group of young men from all walks of life, most with only a high school diploma, it was very important not to alienate them with always using big words while at the same time not to appear false or phony. A delicate balance at first. Later, as you all get used to each other, it becomes easier. Still, while you have to maintain some stature as an officer, tall poppies get mown down.

Haversack.

 

[Lincsong]

What blend of coffee is this?

"We have a varietal selection of dark European blends, made from the finest 100% Arabica beans"

Is this phrase $5 or not?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

... tall poppies get mown down.

... and made into opium.

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[Marc Chevalier]

"We have a varietal selection of dark European blends, ...

Sounds like the Western European population these days. lol

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[Lincsong]

Sounds like the Western European population these days. lol

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Nice one Chev,lol Edgy but true.

 

[scotrace]

Heh

Reading the rest of all this, I am reminded of a line from that classic send-up of the movie Western, _Blazing Saddles_. I don't want to offend the hospitality of the house so I will only allude to it. It was spoken by Taggart, (played by Slim Pickens), to Hedy Lamarr, (played by Harvey Korman), complementing him on his use of expensive-sounding words.

Haversack.

"... that's 'Hedley'"

lol

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Nice one Marc,lol Edgy but true.

A fact's a fact.

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[LizzieMaine]

Twain is writing in the voice of a 14 year old, uneducated kid and so he uses an approximation of the language one might hear from such a character. And even if they understand the words ("sheering" is most likely outside of their lexicon), the situation, the diction and the image the passage is meant to evoke would be obscure to most average eighth graders of today, making Huckleberry Finn an "elitist" work of fiction.

Well, I wouldn't say that -- I think even when Twain isn't writing vernacular, in his straight narrative passages, you'll find he writes in a punchy, naturalistic and distinctly populist manner that was a deliberate break from the formalistic European style that "proper" writers of his day were expected to use. And, purely as a matter of taste, I find that type of writing far more stimulating than the leaden prose of the knee-britches crowd. But to each her own.

For what it's worth, I first read Twain when I was nine, and never had a bit of trouble with either the language or the imagery, and I don't know that kids have gotten *that* much denser over the past thirty-odd years. After all, I have a fourteen-year old niece who reads Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf for fun.

It makes sense to be clear and simple with little, digestible words if you are writing for a (tabloid) paper aimed at readers with, say, a grade eight or lower reading level, but if you are writing for, say, The London Times, The New York Review of Books or for a specialized publication within a particular dicipline - law, medicine, architecture, literary studies, etc. - then the register and the vocabualry changes.

True -- but that's not a license for the sort of excruciatingly bad writing that you'll find in a lot of specialized fields. In my own specialty, the history of radio and television, the shelves are littered with barely-readable academic studies that bury the substance of their ideas under a blanket of pompous lit-crit jargon, and I can rarely read one of these books without flinging it across the room, exasperated by the attitude of smug insularity that exudes from the page. The feeling I get from such works is that the author's ideas are often so flaccid they gain validity only when propped up by the overweening self-importance evident in the technique.

(See, I can do it too!)

Me, I'll stick to the plain-and-simple. If I've got something to say, what's most important to me is that I'm clearly understood -- and if that means sacrificing the ruffles and flourishes for the sake of Joe Average, so be it.

And if we're going to blame anyone for the rule of the lowest common denominator in writing, blame the writers of advertising copy, and for that blame Ben Franklin.

Hey, I used to write advertising -- and it's a lot harder than it looks! Any penwiper can ramble on page after page about the ineffable essence of nothing, but it takes real talent to convince people they need something they never heard of, in 100 words or less!

 

[Lincsong]

A fact's a fact.

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But will others get the joke?:eusa_doh:

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I'm happy when at least somebody gets my jokes. Even that doesn't always happen.

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[Lincsong]

I'm happy when at least somebody gets my jokes. Even that doesn't always happen.

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Chev;
It helps a lot when someone generally thinks outside the box.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I have a fourteen-year old niece who reads Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf for fun.

Please do keep her away from gas ovens, heavy stones and Sussex rivers.

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[Marc Chevalier]

Chev;
It helps a lot when someone generally thinks outside the box.

I'm glad to say that you do.

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