You ever read a post and realize that one of the deepest, most intimate parts of your soul has been eviscerated and laid bare for all to see?
Oh my god. How?!
When I joined the military, I got that reaction from most of the people in my flight. I wasn’t even aware that I was talking any differently, but having just come from college, my brain was stuck in essary vocabulary mode.
Imagine my consternation as a gastrointestinally-challenged individual when I first comprehended that abstaining from volatile food substances doesn’t inherently deter diarrhoea, but instead introduces a new spectrum of misapprehension I had never even conceptualized. This manifests in the form of observers presuming you’re adopting a fastidious or finicky demeanour when you’re simply endeavouring to maintain intestinal harmony.
The key is to have the vocabulary at hand, and only use it when it’s actually needed.
Basically how scientists speak, except without words that no one else has a clue what they mean.
Once as an intern I had to write an email about some random issue we were having at the time. I wasn’t trying to sound smart or anything, just writing as I saw fit. Showed to my boss before sending and he just said ‘ok, let’s change this a bit’. It was a good thing, because I learned to be more aware of context when talking/writing.
I have been subject of a similar critique in a professional setting. My response was to ask if they also contacted the authors of books to use more primitive words when they failed to understand the text. I love to hear or read unusual words and my first instinct is to reach for a dictionary or if it’s slang it’s often fun to play with the words. We want our audience to understand us but removing the flourishes sterilises language in the way that a patent lawyer renders a text into very precise but ultimately joyless verbiage.
Large vocab != eloquence
Yes, I can relate. But at the same time there is such a thing as unnecessary jargon.
I too involve myself in this ideosyncratic behaviour.
Jokes aside, why can’t people just appreciate that I’m trying to explain something as exactly as possible?
Just use whatever words you feel like. Unless you’re trying to use the most complex words possible at all times, no one really cares. At best people will think you’re eloquent. At worst, snobbish. But if they think that, then fuck em, who cares. Don’t get hung up on the way you sound. That’ll just breed insecurities
Unrelated, but how do I force new lines on my comments?
Two spaces at the end of the line
Like this
Ah, the old “Me brain has big-brained better than the small brain of the small-brained former” What prize, what pomp, to give to yonder misanthrope!
I don’t usually feel the need to change how I talk, but I should probably practice simplifying my vocabulary more often than I do because on the rare occasion I do need to, like when I’m talking to a child, I think I go a little too far with it and just end up sounding like a caveman.