Let’s say you have a good education and a good idea you want to present to equally educated colleagues. You might think to use your big words, your long sentences, and your dialectically organized, long paragraphs. A recent, Princeton University study suggests this is a route to disaster, even with the educated. It’s even more so with the un-educated. Big words don’t convince anyone, and don’t even impress. Small words do.

Like this fellow, most folks aren’t impressed by fancy speeches. (cartoon by Gahan Wilson)

http://web.princeton.edu/…/Opp%20Consequences%20of%20Erudit…

People, even educated ones, want ideas presented in simple words and straight, simple sentences. They trust  and respect people who speak this way far more than those who shoot high, and sometimes over their heads. Even educated people find long words and sentences confusing, and off-putting. To them, as to the less-educated, it sounds like you’re using your fancy english as a cover for lies and ignorance, and that you’re trying to claim superiority. Who knew that George W Bush. was so smart (Al Gore?). Here’s George W. at the SMU graduation yesterday (May 18). He does well, I’d say, and keeps mostly to one-syllable words.

Lower yourself to be one of the crowd, but don’t go so far that you’re the butt of jokes.

I’ve come to ask why fancy language skills are used for college entrance exams, and why their use adds points when writing a college paper. Put another way, why are professors pleased by something that’s off-putting to everyone else. Perhaps this is a jargon test, to show you’re a reader and wish to join the pedantics’ club. Alternately, perhaps professors have gotten so used to Latinate language that it’s become natural language to them, spoken when they visit musea. Whatever the reason, when outside of university, keep it simple (and) stupid.

Some specifics: at job interviews, say you want to work at their company doing a job in your field. Only when dealing with professors can you claim your goal is capitalizing on your intellectual synergies, a phrase that means the same thing. Don’t say, you’ll do anything, and remember it’s OK to ask for training; poor education is the secret to American success.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum, May 19, 2015. Here are some further thoughts on education, and some pictures of my dorm and the grad college at Princeton back in the day.