No bones about it, we all know length matters. Given the choice between the long and the short, I know which match I’d pick, any day. Long is safe, it’s seductive, it’s impressive. The longer, the stronger, they say, and in many cases I’d agree with that happily. In language terms, however, I take the opposite view: the longer, the wronger.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got nothing against long words as such. When used aptly, the long word is in its place (I’ll come back to this later). Considering the vast extent of the English language — an estimated one million words, including scientific terminology, available to about 400 million native-speakers  of English in the world, or just over 5.5 per cent of the world’s population— why not mine the glorious length and depth of its vocabulary? It’s not that I’m an anti-size queen for lawd’s sake (‘gimme the ant-sized not the gi-ant-sized’) or that I’m a sad victim of hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

It’s just that especially with fiction I prefer reading pithy writing as opposed to screeds of  super-long words that are hard enough to negotiate on paper, let alone say out loud without stumbling. As an editor at the Oxford University Press, the true wordnerd Ben Zimmer puts it, 33-letter extreme monstrosities like hippopotomonstrosesquipedalianism, used to describe enormous words or sesquipedalian (literally ‘a foot and a half long’) are “nothing more than flashy stunt words.”

Big words = big brains?

Given the choice, which sentence do you like better: A or B?
A. The feline entity posed sedentarily on the vestibular runner.
B. The cat sat on the hall mat.

See? You chose B. Probably because you can tell in a flash what B is all about. Look at both sentences again and tell me which one is by the more intelligent writer.

Now you say A, maybe because you think: Big words = Big brains. It’s erudite, right? Well, let me ask you: How easy was it to understand sentence A? Did you instantly get that ‘runner’ in this context doesn’t mean ‘someone moving faster than a walk’ but that long strip of dusty carpet you find ‘running’ down a hall (funnily enough, in Dutch it’s called a ‘walker’).

Oh, so you’ve changed your mind, have you? Now you think sentence B is the more intelligent. Well done, you’re right! Most people would think the author of B is smarter but don’t take my word for it, there’s real scientific evidence to prove it.

Smart writers consider their readers

Smart people don’t write to impress, but to express themselves clearly to ensure their message gets across. Smart people consider their readers. They know that any unnecessary extra effort is a turn-off and only makes readers inclined to think the writer is dumber rather than smarter.

In a nutshell, this is the message of this paper by Daniel M. Oppenheimer. Bet your bottom dollar it’s an easy read, so don’t miss it!

Bottom line

 

 

 

Writers should be read—but neither seen nor heard. Daphne du Maurier

To paraphrase dear Daphne, “Words should be short—but not too lean or absurd.” Because, sometimes the long(er) word is the best choice. Yea verily! Now I know this is going to sound as if I’m sending myself up (taking the pith?) and contradicting the point of this post. But I’m not. As fans of plain language know well, the words we choose to use in our writing should  consider the vocabulary that our readers are familiar with. I mean, if you’re writing for young children, you wouldn’t assault them with a series of incendiary polysyllables, now would you?  You’d hit them with the fiery little words they will easily understand.

But if you’re writing for a highly educated audience, say academic researchers working in a scientific field that has developed its own specialist terminology to express complex things and thoughts succinctly, not using current jargon is going to waste your readers’ time and probably annoy them too. They’ll think you’re treating them like dunces by dumbing down the language unnecessarily.

See, the long and the short of using language effectively to communicate boils down to this: word length matters, but plainly, the choice of the wording should depend on your intended audience.

 The longest lingo

Let me leave you now with popular VJ Joanne Colan from Rocketboom and her stumble-free recital of the longest lingo in the language. Top marks for tackling such ultra-wily stunts as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Enjoy!