masquerade
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
cassMANdra :) 10:22 PM 」


Why use big words when simple ones will do?

This newspaper article by Janadas Devan on words is my favourite. Make sure you read EVERYTHING. There is a morale behind it.

To cut the long story short, Mr Shanmugam was questioning Mr Yong about the letter he had written to the former NKF directore Matilda Chua, congratulating her on her work and informing her that her salary was to be raised. Mr Shanmugam used the language written in the letter to prove that it was done by Mr T.T Durai instead of Mr Yong.

The letter read in part: '' You have laboured extremely hard into the late hours of the night for the past few months without regard to your impending parturition. You have been able to coalesce a team of relentless beavers who were determined to make this (NKF Charity Show) reach an iconic status. The success of the Show also douses the remainingembers of doubts prevailing in the minds of some of the members of the public." To put it into layman language, " You have worked hard over the past few months despite yur pregnancy. You gathered an effective team to make the NkF Charity Show a success. The Show's success reassured some sceptical members of the public." This would give you an idea of why good writing is not a matter of rifling throug the thesaurus for ponderous substitutes for simple words.

As so it happens, ther is evidence to suggest that the opposite would be the case. As was reported by Princeton Uni. psychologist Daniel M. Oppenheimer has established that needlessly complex language does not impress people. Rather, it puts them off.

"It's important to point out that this research is not about problems with using long words but about using long words needlessly," Dr Oppenheimer cautioned. But "one thig seems certain: write as simply and plainly as possible and it's more likely you'll be thought of as intelligent." He carries on to say that the more flowery the sample, the lower was the students' estimation of the writer's intelligence.

Try this (from a business-writing website): Let your extemporaneous descantings and unpremediated expatiations have intelligibility and vercious vivacity, without rodomontade or thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolixity, psittaceous vacuity, ventriloquial vapidity. Shun double-entendres, prurient jocosity, and pestiferous profanity, obscurant or apparent.

Are you impressed by it? Who do you think is smarter: Dr Oppenheimer or the writer of the above passage(if he or she had meant it seriously)? It is OBVIOUS.


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