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. I kinda just did it with the word ‘colloquial.’ Guilty.
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 quotent drop with each and every syllable of our verbiage. Continue reading “Big Pretentious Words are Big and Pretentious”