Big Words

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Eric Neumann @ericneumannpsyc Have you ever made your writing more complex to signal your intelligence?

Don't.

It has the opposite effect.

"Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly" - Daniel Oppenheimer

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/acp.1178

 Apr 8, 2021·

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Me: 

Don't use big words to try to impress smart people. They do work to impress the poorly educated, including most college grads. With such people, you even have to worry that if you use a big word naturally, you are just doing it to impress them.


"Von Neumann would carry on a conversation with my 3-year-old son, and the two of them would talk as equals, and I sometimes wondered if he used the same principle when he talked to the rest of us." - Edward Teller