Friday Light: Big, Superfluous Words Make Us Seem Smarter

As creatives, we’ll often bend toward the serious side of life. Our temperaments embrace the melancholy, rainy day, James Taylor-esque “You’ve Got a Friend” sadness that, for some reason, makes us feel comforted. Not happy, but comforted.Sometimes we gotta chillax. In an effort to blend balance into our creative lives, I introduce to you Friday Light.This will be a weekly series each Friday to smack the melancholy in the tooth, laugh a little, and deliver a non-alcoholic buzz.Let’s get chuggin’.Confession: I sometimes like to appear smarter than I really am. Rather than using colloquial language, I’ll toss in some three, four, and five syllable words to dazzle. Have you ever used “big words” just to impress someone?Words like these…

• Pretentious. Even using the word ‘pretentious’ is, in itself, pretentious.
• Colloquial. See above. I used it a few sentences ago to make myself appear shiningly brilliant.
• Nebulous. I’ll toss this one into a sentence when describing concepts and ideas that aren’t specific. As in: “I like the direction of this project Fran, it’s just a bit nebulous at present.” Just saying the word ‘nebulous’ raises my IQ. I’m sure of it.
• Any Medical Terminology Picked Up from WebMD. As in “yeah, it was a post-roital laceration on my dorsal vertex.” Of course, peons who haven’t read WebMD feel their intelligence quotient drop with each and every syllable of our verbiage.
• Verbiage. It’s pretentious to use the word ‘verbiage.’
• Moot. Like a judge on Law and Order, we’ll refute irrelevant information and use the word moot. Check this out from the dictionary: “it is moot whether this phrase should be treated as metaphor or not.” That sentence doesn’t even seem like English.
• Ambidextrous. I get a one-two punch out of this one by both saying the word and demonstrating as well. For some odd reason, I have no trouble shooting pool with either hand. Though I’ll probably not win the game, my opponent is astonished with my vocabulary and my ambidextrousness. Makes me feel better about myself… just like listening to James Taylor.

How are we going to keep it light today?  Suggestion box below… just leave your tips in the comments.