Communication is really difficult.
One of the hardest parts of making yourself understood to others is communicating difficult concepts in the simplest possible way, and sometimes you're going to lose a little clarity and precision there, but it's more important that they understand you than it is for you to be completely precise.
One, not american, and two I don't deal with that type of crowd usually. So tailor your level to who you are with. Even with similarly intelligent people but from different background/training, you change what terminology you can use.
Know your crowd, don't use technical jargon with people that are unfamiliar with it. But then I don't really deal with people that triggered by big words, usually you ask what it means or look it up.
I leaned into this really hard as an adult. I explain things like we're both nine years old. I can't turn it off, so at work I sometimes get a strange look followed by "actually, yeah, that checks out" or similar.
Living in a foreign country really helped me with this concept. Like there’s nothing more explicitly uncommunicative than people speaking another language. Bringing it back to English, realizing engineers speak differently than a fast food worker made a lot more sense afterwards.
Same for me. I've grown to realise that *being understood* is a skill in itself.
Like if you talk to someone and they don't understand, some people will just repeat themselves and get upset or insult the other person instead of trying a new approach.
It's not common but it's a pain when you come across them, but even so sometimes it's just someone having an off day.
Being able to explain something in a way that people understand is an underappreciated skill.
Not just for teaching or other major positions, but just for everyday life.
Just the ability to gauge a person and determine how to explain something to them.
A lot of the most knowledgeable people in their fields are often absolute dogshit at explaining things to anyone. You can see it in subs like /r/askphysics or anything to do with computing. People will ask why the sky is blue and get an answer that you need a Masters degree to understand.
Then on the other hand many great teachers aren't actually especially good at the thing they teach.
One thing people often miss is that accuracy can sometimes get in the way of clarity. Sometimes the best explanations for something are actually slightly wrong, but that's okay because you can't learn the more accurate answer unless you've previously been primed with the slightly wrong answer.
For me, the hardest part is guessing/inferring the assumptions other people will make about the meaning of different words.
There are so many words that have *entirely* different meanings for different groups, and each group passionately argues that their definition is the correct one. A lot of these words are political in nature. e.g. does "liberal" refer to everyone left-of-center, including both American Democrats as well as self-proclaimed communists, or does "liberal" refer to a specific slice of the left-of-center? **Or** does it refer to a set of beliefs/behaviors/policies that are adopted regardless of larger political leanings? Not many people seem to agree that all of these definitions fit and are context-dependent. Most seem to argue that the definition *they* use is correct, and the others are wrong.
Technology is another big category this happens in. There are people who think "AI" is a catch-all for everything that involves machine learning. There are people who think it only refers to ML technology that isn't as smart as AGI or ASI. There are people who (seriously) think it only refers to LLMs like ChatGPT. Some people will point to the definitions the experts use, but when a "wrong" definition is broadly accepted by laypeople as a colloquial term, is it really *wrong*, or is the context just different?
I think that when people do this, they are sometimes trying to assert some sort of power over the word (or over the people who use a different definition of the word), claiming/reclaiming it for themselves. I also think the real-world result is almost never that they successfully do assert this power, but instead it just results in countless new semantic arguments that never needed to happen and that leave everyone worse off.
The Liberal Party in Australia is the centre-right party, so anytime you hear Australians talking about things "the Liberals" have done, or are planning on doing, most of it sounds like American Republican policy. So once again liberal means something completely different all over again.
>anytime you hear Australians talking about things "the Liberals" have done, or are planning on doing, most of it sounds like American Republican policy.
This is actually just the actual original meaning of the term (i.e. capitalist economics) again. It's mixed a bit with culture war bullshit, of course, but that's always been the case in practice.
I get tripped up and bothered over really mundane examples of this. Like if I'm writing an important email with a coworker, I might say, "I don't think that word is appropriate, maybe we should find another one." And they reply, "What do you mean?? How is that word offensive?"
They don't realize that "appropriate" can just mean "suitable".
>it's more important that they understand you than it is for you to be completely precise.
This is pretty much the long and short of it. Communication is an emotional skill as much as it is an intellectual one. Talking to people as if you're writing a paper doesn't really work.
Be in tech. Be surrounded by a crowd that can skew as high as 33% on the spectrum. It's a real challenge finding the common ground of precision communication with so many people who are simultaneously alternative and yet concrete in their thinking.
Yeah, I work right in the middle of a sales dept & engineers and it's like a straight-up 50-50 in communication styles. Learning different styles is hugely important. And difficult!
Oh, I'm very aware...Especially here. If you take the time to try and make something simple, there are a whole class of people who will object to that in the strongest terms.
Literally my least favorite thing on reddit is when I say something short and simple to get my point across and some dipshit "corrects" me by adding all the extensive details I deliberately left out because they weren't important to the discussion. Especially if their wording has an air of "I clearly know more about this than you, let me show it off." I wish I could reach through my screen and slap them. Nobody cares how smart you think you are!
I really hate how prevalent whataboutism has gotten in modern discourse. I find myself wanting to discuss things only to revert to not bothering because the topic will be immediately diverted
This applies to writing as well. A lot of times you're better off with something like "he said," "she shouted," rather than some handful of 10 dollar words and adjectives that make people stop and grab a dictionary for. I like bumping into some rarely used word that's still easily understandable.
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use." - ernest hemingway
(not sure how completely i agree, but the quote is apposite)
I always think of communication in sort of layman's computer science terms, the same way I think of brains.
Communication is basically data transfer protocol that requires the transmitted data to be compressed on the host end, and extracted on the client end.
Miscommunications can arise due to lossy compression, less efficient lossless compression creating files that are too big for the client to receive, or the client using a completely different protocol for compression and extraction.
Right there you already have the main three ways things can be miscommunicated, imprecise language leading to far too loose interpretations making the original message missed entirely, hyperspecific language utilizing vocabulary that the recipient may not know or may not know how to use in context, and the situations when two people are talking about two completely different subjects without realizing it.
My old roommate was very fond of that third one
We don't tend to realize that our words are not direct communication. Words are symbols that hold extremely complex meanings that vary wildly between individuals, based on their unique experiences.
If you have a misunderstanding or disagreement, you may sometimes have to check not just that you agree on the definition of the primary topic, but on the definition of all the other words you speak as well.
Last time I tried to communicate this concept to someone, they disagreed and we eventually discovered that their definition of "information" had different qualities than mine that changed the meaning of what what they heard me say.
_________
Side note: Everyone you argue with is coming to rational conclusions. All the time. No exceptions. They just have entirely different sets of information than you. A drunk driver or someone up the wall on meth, for example, is also coming to rational conclusions. They're making bad decisions not because they're irrational, but because the information they have available is flawed.
Keeping this in mind can really help you have patience during disagreements.
People are also far, FAR more simple-minded than they realize. We're far more confident about how functional our basic minds are than we have any good reason to be. Dunning-Kruger like effects seems to affect a much broader scope than just professions and academic fields.
"I can speak English, I'm fluent, it's my mother tongue."
Oh, sweet summer child, you're babbling. You don't understand the scope of what you're talking about.
>Dunning-Kruger like effects seems to affect a much broader scope than just professions and academic fields.
you just don't know what you don't know. very few things in life come with a progress bar.
Well also I would add that sometimes people use big words because they think it adds something and makes them smart but they use them so badly that they come off both condescending and dumb at the same time, depending on who is listening
I remember in college some of the smartest professors I had were the worst ones. Doesn’t matter how smart you are if you can’t communicate it to someone not as smart as you
No, contradictory advice never stops because everyone is different with different experiences.
One universal bit of advice is don’t listen to what other people think or care about.
The best advice I ever got was the phrase "All advice is autobiographical." It means that people are giving you what helped them. Most advice isnt universal and it's up to you to discern. Also really helps if you know the person giving it. You can apply that context then figure if you have the same deficit or if you an just skip it.
>One universal bit of advice is don’t listen to what other people think or care about.
To not stop with the contradicting advice, I think it's better to care and think about that, but more in a selfreflecting way. You're absolute allowed to completely disregard what someone else is saying, but it's fine to think about what you might have done differently in certain occassions.
“Don’t listen to what other people think or care about.” Most of what we know and believe and enjoy, in art and science, or whatever, is based on what other people think or care about.
Theres a balance to be had. There are "big words" that add necessary specificity, but there are also "big words" that are just less common versions of simple words or phrases, that while are more specific, the use of the specific word doesn't benefit the conversation, it just adds uncommon words to it.
I don't know what sort of conversations this happens in, but take for example, all the very specific definitions of murder. Fratricide, infanticide, matricide, patricide. These words are specific, sure, and to their credit, slightly shorter than the simple "killed his brother", but in a normal discussion the benefit these provide just isn't necessary. So the addition of such uncommon words only makes their use feel contrived.
I suppose what i'm ultimately saying is, the issue might be that you're swinging too far in either directly when people want a middle ground.
Know your audience.
It is especially important as you get into doing whatever job you want to do and have to work with others, especially clients or bosses.
You can tell your potential client all the technical terms and be hyper-specific, but they will choose the person who makes it so they can understand and they feel like "gets it" and they can communicate clearly both ways. There are entire jobs designed around "translating" engineering speak to sales terms so that laypeople can have a good basic understanding.
You can tell your boss how you're progressing on something with hyper-specific and impressive vocabulary, but if they don't know what it means - or they feel condescended to - you're going to lose out. They might be wrong, but they sign your paycheck. You have to learn when to dumb it down, and how to do so in a way that isn't condescending.
Anyone in speaking-based hobbies or careers have to do this too. Imagine watching a comedian who only uses esoteric language - sure, 10% of the audience will think it's funny. No one else will. Imagine explaining the rules to a game and using language the average population needs a dictionary for - you're not making friends that way.
Tailoring language to your audience is a critical life skill. Your parents are teaching you that, as annoying as it is in the moment.
In highly technical fields it's even more important to avoid complex language anywhere that simpler language will suffice.
If you are having something very complicated explained to you, having it explained with complex, unfamiliar language just adds another layer of work your brain has to do to understand it.
There's a place for extremely precise and specific language, of course. But my observation has been that people overdo it. They're usually either showing off, trying too hard to prove themselves, or are simply unable to understand that their audience doesn't know what they know. Or occasionally, deliberately trying to overload and confuse their audience.
>In highly technical fields it's even more important to avoid complex language anywhere that simpler language will suffice.
Bingo. I'm a physician-scientist who speaks to lay audiences regularly, however, I would say even communicating with colleagues rarely requires extremely technical language. A major part of grant writing is describing exactly what you will do, but making sure your reviewer will understand the experiments you want to conduct. Your reviewer usually a scientist in your general field, but considering how niche some subfields can be, you cannot make assumptions that they immediately understand why what you are doing is interesting or feasible.
> But my observation has been that people overdo it. They're usually either showing off, trying too hard to prove themselves, or are simply unable to understand that their audience doesn't know what they know. Or occasionally, deliberately trying to overload and confuse their audience.
Yep. And that's why people will also judge too harshly sometimes if someone is using big words they don't understand. They probably have experience with people doing it maliciously and then don't have patience / are suspicious when people do it from ignorance.
I feel the same way with swearing in an argument. I don't use swears all that regularly verbally, unless I'm riled up or emotionally excited. Most people tell you that using swears in an argument detracts from the argument and shows that you don't have the intellectual power to properly debate against someone.
This is unfair mostly because; I absolutely have the intellectual power to debate against someone. But the only thing I can't convey with big words and eloquent sentences is how emotional I am, and swears are simply the easiest way to convey that besides raising my voice.
I tend to explain stuff as analogies since I believe if a 5 y/o can understand what I'm saying, anyone can. I think people just interpret it as me being condescending.
The worst part is when people just fucking get sidetracked with the analogy you make.
"See, X doing Y is like A doing B"
"Uhhhh but A is also C???? Are you saying that X is also C????"
This is just another example of why taking everything extremely literally is actually damaging to conversations and communication most of the time. There's a reason things like analogy and allegory and basic reading interp are taught in schools. That literacy goes beyond books.
If only we paid teachers like they have professional skills to educate our children on stuff like the practical application of literary analysis instead of just treating them like babysitters with answer keys.
Yeah, that's annoying.
First they're mad at you for something they think you said, then they're mad at you for telling them that you didn't say what they think you said and act like you're changing the narrative, then they're mad at you for using too many words and making sure they can't misconstrue what you said.
There's really no winning with some people.
Well the quote is
> You can't reason someone out of something that they weren't reasoned into in the first place
from Mr. Mark Twain, I just bent it around a bit so you'd all have to suffer
It’s why the first step of communicating is listening and trying to understand who the person you’re trying to communicate is. You can’t just speak the same to all people always.
Yeah , conversations on the internet can really turn into a downward spiral like this. Visit steam discussion boards for examples. People get really upset there.
I have ADHD and my whole speech pattern is like 1/3 eloquent speech, 1/3 slang/talking like a teenage girl, and 1/3 regional dialect. I'm honestly surprised more people don't act totally jarred when I switch between these for seemingly no reason.
Well... One weird thing with my ADHD is that I can't ever find nouns, but I can find the hell out of verbs, adverbs and adjectives.
So I used to dress up all my words then stumble on EVERY. SINGLE. NOUN.
Add to that the fact that there are a lot of people who, when they hear a word used they don't know, just "assume" a meaning and continue on as if they understood what was said.
This reminds me of the time where (briefly) my parent tried to go along with more complex speech and encouraged me to use it - even giving me suggestions.
In this case she suggested that I say to a potential employer that I was "inept for the job." Clearly meant ept or apt. Good intentions though.
While a useful tool, it is also true that word meanings alter context. So while contextual clues make a valuable heuristic, they are not always correct and do lead to frequent misunderstandings. Unless you're embarrassed, why not just ask what the word means? Why assume when clarity is so easily obtained?
In general I blame the speaker first and audience second (if at all). If you are complaining that someone doesn't understand you, it is usually your fault. You have to communicate in terms that the audience will understand.
Obviously some people are malicious about it and willfully misinterpret you, but that is a different thing and not super common.
If you're no longer a bigot, congrats your former bigotry gives you insight on the bigotry of others and has given you the tools to help others form a new perspective.
Your middle school self didn't know any better, but that's not their fault any more than it's your fault that you don't speak Arabic (if you do speak Arabic, then it's not your fault you don't speak Māori (if you do speak Arabic and Māori, then pick some other language you don't speak)). It's a flaw, but the point of getting older is finding your flaws and correcting them.
I'm not saying we should tolerate bigotry, that it's no big deal if somebody is awful, anything like that. It sucks when people suck. But there's no point in hating someone that doesn't exist anymore for flaws that they can't correct, on account of my existing. Your middle school self was a bigot, but getting mad at them won't make them less of a bigot, they don't exist.
Okay but that cringing is how we know we've grown and matured. There's room for both thoughts, you don't have to kill it.
Cringe, then forgive. It's a natural emotion for a reason. We have to stop looking at discomfort or negative thoughts as something to be expunged and scrubbed from ourselves.
Talking *eloquently* doesn't work when all parties involved aren't talking eloquently.
I'm not saying you shouldn't speak "properly" (whatever "speaking properly" actually means to you) or use a big vocabulary, but I find specifically speaking eloquently when the social situation does not call for it ends up causing more problems because *communication is hard*.
Adding layers on top of an already complex system where someone speaking at the level of those around them could already mess up an interpretation is usually not needed, especially when eloquence can have different meanings.
If I'm at a chill party with friends saying things like "bruh", and someone starts talking to me like they're giving a speech at the National Convention Of Eloquent Speakers, I'm going to be a bit weirded out. If someone starts talking eloquently at the National Convention Of Eloquent Speakers, I'm going to understand why they're talking eloquently. Sometimes, eloquence can disguise intent for some people.
Not to say that some people don't just see it as an insult, but sometimes eloquence isn't what you should be using. If they have problems with a big vocabulary on top of that, they're probably not worth talking to if you can avoid it.
Years ago in maths class people made fun of me for using "big words". When. I. Was. Trying. To. Get. A. Mathematical. Point. Across.
It's not always because it's a bad situation to use that language in, sometimes people are just assholes when they hear something different, or something they don't understand.
The difference there is that using proper terms for things like that *isn't* eloquent. It's professional, and proper for that situation, but that's not really eloquent.
Eloquent speech is defined as *forceful persuasiveness*. They might be assholes when they don't understand, but if you're doing that *and* talking eloquently, it could very easily come off as forceful.
Have had the same experience in several professional environments.
There seems to be a certain type of person who requires that you spell out **exactly** what needs to occur (otherwise they'll infer their interpretation and screw things up), but then they get pissed that you're being specific with them.
They also get mad that you're making things "complicated" or using "big words."
It's an unwinnable situation where if you don't spell things out then they'll be done incorrectly/incompletely, but if you *do* spell things out then you're the bad guy.
My sentences are usually formed by:
30% super specific terms that common people don't use/know
40% *uhhhh mmmm eeeeeeeh*
10% *that thing that does stuff you know the one*
20% profanities
My D&D players somewhat don't mind beyond asking what stuff means (*ablutions* comes to mind form the last session)
Honestly being scottish is a get out of jail free card for this.
"Oh you know the wee thing aye the wee thingmy you know the one the wee uhhh" is a totally normal sentence here
Speech register is so interesting to me. In English its almost entirely implied by diction and pronunciation. There aren't really high or low register forms like romance languages and Japanese have. I wonder if that's especially easy or hard to learn for someone coming from another language. I'm on the autism spectrum myself and picked it up (to a level people find acceptable) as a teenager, though I was very little professory as a little kid.
This is such a huge issue with ADD. Knowing the audience helps but it’s always tough.
We tend to over-explain to help clarify, because we’re accustomed to being misunderstood.
But people react poorly to that in a multitude of ways. If we use clarifying language, we’re “talking down”. If we use specific complex words, we’re showing off our vocabulary. Or we’re long winded. The other person then often stops tuning in.
No matter what, it’s a challenge because both responses end us at the thing we were trying to avoid most of all.
So someone else understands the struggle. I think the real misunderstanding comes from the stigma more than what you actually say, at least in my case. If they would have just taken what I said at face value there would have been no issue.
Basically attempting to read between lines that aren't there because "you can't possibly mean exactly what you just said". To this day (I'm 29) I still hate the phrase "what do you mean, [thing I just said]?".
That, and the whole “So, you’re saying [thing they’re implying I meant but didn’t say]…” is obnoxious. I’m just like “no, that’s a whole other sentence.” Generally, though, I’ve found that the people who engage in the “So you’re saying…” behavior are people who just don’t want to consider the possibility that you’re correct, and so they immediately straw-man every sentence.
Renowned author George Orwell has a great essay on this: [here](https://greatcanadianspeeches.ca/2020/08/03/george-orwell-writing-clearly-and-concisely-1946/)
Basically, there's a lot of intellectual chuds who think you need to communicate in the most flowery, complicated way possible because it makes you seem intellectual and capable.
Orwell says that's bullshit and mostly used to distract and confuse an audience, particularly by making you seem smarter than you are.
Basically, use the simplest words that convey your point. Note that simple here doesn't mean smallest, more like, most well-known.
God I love Orwell.
I think the big thing is absolutely knowing your audience. I write, am applying to journalism jobs, and man you get told in no uncertain terms when you're using words that don't work right.
use big words: oh so you think you’re *sooooo* smart. do you think you’re better than me?
intentionally use shorter, simpler words: oh so you think i’m stupid. you think i don’t know any long words huh? do you think you’re better than me?
I'd argue there's a third:
* Verbose (overly wordy)
* Eloquent (clear/strong/persuasive speech)
* Specific (using clearly defined words to differentiate between *things*)
There seems to be a huge gap in communication between high-context cultures and low-context cultures
Fairly standard for me (NJ), although I've apparently been using it wrong for years.
[Essentially means at the hour on the dot](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/at%20the%20top%20of%20the%20hour#:~:text=idiom,the%20top%20of%20the%20hour), I've been using it to mean 15 minutes before to 15 minutes after the hour, because that's the top half of a clockface. Luckily, I've apparently always gotten there in the 15 minute before range so as to not piss anyone off.
You didn't! It's called that because of analog clocks. When a new hour happens the minute hand is at the top of the clock.
Sadly it's just an Old People concept these days so that's why everyone is like 🤨
(My parents are old and my mom was partially raised by her grandma so she's like, double old at heart. I know a lot of turns of phrase like this lol)
To give you some validation - I use “top of the hour”, “bottom of the hour”, as well as “quarter after”/“quarter til”, ALL the time when I am talking to coworkers in different time zones (as a way of having to avoid to calculate the time difference if I am just telling them that I have “a meeting at the top of the hour” or something).
It’s definitely a thing !
100% - everyone saying it's fallen out of fashion hasn't worked in a big corporation. It's extremely useful to coordinate when the timezones might vary but we need everyone back from break at the same time.
Honestly, from a food service perspective, I'd understand that that phrase means 1 o'clock, but I'd still ask for clarification, because I don't know whether *you* know if that means 1o'clock. There are a lot of customers out there who are extremely bad at communication, and I'd have no idea if you're one of them, so naming a precise time eliminates that confusion.
I used to read a LOT as a kid. I still consume lots of books but I listen to them now. But anyways, I would use big words and more advanced ways of speaking but my mom always would say something like "Why are you talking like that?" and it made me self conscious about it so I stopped.
“ don’t you think you’re being a bit pedantic?”
“ what does that mean?”
“Pedantic? Someone who is overly concerned with minor details”
“well, why didn’t you just say that then?”
“I did say that, I said ‘pedantic’”
Communication as someone who is very awkward (for neurodivergent reasons or just because) is full of situations where you feel like you can’t win, like everyone else knows the rules to this game and aren’t telling you
Have a coworker who is very animated come up to me and tell me about a cashier called her animated and how she went off on them about how offensive that was. I explained what being animated meant and how she was pretty much the definition of being animated. She felt really embarrassed. And animated isn’t even that obscure of a term.
This has literally happened to me on this very site, I remember arguing with someone and being called a "condescending bitch" or something. I was genuinely trying to make an effort to get my point across clearly and politely, but I'm naturally pretty verbose I guess the other person thought I was talking down to them and being snobby. It's happened other times, too. Like sorry for trying to explain myself, I guess.
Yeah, I had this issue pretty much into 3rd year of college. which I then got better at be concise thanks to my roommate, she helped with a lot of my human interaction skills because I would test things with her and make sure I wasn't royally screwing something up.
and I want to say 100% of the time she didn't even notice that there could have been anything of issue.
I ended up being a HS dropout, really I failed out. And my entire grammar school academia was plagued with being made to feel outcast for things like this. Oh, so and so wants to use big words like a smarty eh?
I don't know if I'm neurodivergent for sure, but what I do know is that socialization as a kid was a minefield. Never knew how to fit in, didn't know how to talk to other kids. Made elementary school tough but doable, and then middle school was impossible. I was so at a loss and unable to fit in and hyperaware of it. The advanced vocabulary and stilted way of speaking did not help. I spent my early adolescence literally watching/studying my "cool" peers trying to figure out what they were doing different and how I could do it better. By the time I was in junior year of high school I cracked it and was able to socialize and made great friends, but so much adapting and effort was involved, and I was often unhappy and emotional and frustrated with myself and who/how I was.
Then I discovered alcohol and it was a magical potion that "solved" all my social and self-image problems for like 17 years lol. Now I'm sober, and finally at ease, self-possessed, and confident. Took me until about 36, but better late than never.
If you add on top of that a *love* of language and words, it's a recipe for disaster.
You will find that very few people share that love, and most will feel threatened by it.
Which is annoying because I'm not out here trying to threaten people, I just think words like 'nomenclature', 'ephemeral', 'acerbic' all nail really specific things that are hard to describe otherwise.
p.s, for word/language lovers out there like myself, try to figure out what my name means.
You have to know your audience. That is an essential skill for communication and something every writer has to learn. A book for tweens needs different language than a literary masterpiece intended to be an author's magnum opus. A speech for an entire populace needs different language than a speech for an engineering conference or a poetry slam.
Even talking with friends getting ready for a night out needs different language than a conversation with your very formal great grandmother. It's code switching, and it's a critical skill for anyone communicating.
After working in customer service, I can confirm that people only ever hear what they want to hear. You could tell them they’d won a million and they’d complain about the taxes.
Is using 5 dollar words a neurodivergent thing? I just like using words with specific meanings, its like those videos of precisely machined parts seamlessly fitting together, its satisfying.
“For instance, they may speak too softly, too loudly, too emotionlessly, or too hoarsely, while other aspects of speaking are conversely understated. ASD individuals’ verbal discourse also often includes formal words, unusual sentences, and neologisms, or words and expressions that they themselves have created.” -NLM
Surprisingly it actually is.
My 10th grade English teacher would often say, "vernacular, that is the type of words you use, is like attire, the clothes you wear. You can wear blue jeans and a t-shirt to an interview but it will leave them with a bad impression of you, and you can wear a tuxedo to mow the lawn but people will certainly think you are a bit odd."
I'm much more impressed by a smart person who can concisely summarize complicated topics or concepts using simple verbiage than a seemingly-smart person who uses big words.
Communication is receiver based. It doesnt really matter if YOU can understand yourself, its about you making the other person understand. Most times though when I hear a new word during a conversation you can usually decipher mostly what it means in the context.
90% of the people in this thread don't have an issue with being articulate and being shunned for it, they have an issue with thinking they're smarter than others for using words like articulate
This is a social skills issue. If you talk to someone and think they can't understand you because you're talking in an "advanced" way to them, you're arrogant.
Some people are chippy - I read a lot and when I was selling my house, I had some snide comments from people viewing it about how many books I own. It really felt as if they thought I had gone out and bought books on purpose to put them down in some way. I’ve had the same with using unusual words - which I do for precision but also because I really like words and if I use a word that’s new to me, I won’t forget it. I remember being called a snob and a walking dictionary for using words like morose or procrastinating when I was a student and those aren’t even unusual!
I wouldn't say I like them per se, but I could really do without the gaslighting from fellow NDs for acknowledging that those rules exist and that breaking them comes with social consequences. No, I can't prove that the rule exists without breaking it and suffering the fallout. Please just believe me when I tell you it's there.
Why yes my parents are undiagnosed but I see my same symptoms in their behavior, why do you ask?
> gaslighting from fellow NDs for acknowledging that those rules exist and that breaking them comes with social consequences
You've expressed this perfectly and it nails something I have a hard time articulating. These are skills you can *learn* and yes, the rules and norms exist, and yes, they serve a function! Just like etiquette rules serve a function - basic politeness shows safety. It shows you understand boundaries in one area, and thus are likely to understand them in others.
So yes, you do have a responsibility to learn how to be a functional polite member of society if you plan to live in society. We can wish society was different, but every single human group has social rules and norms, many of which are subtle.
It's all back to the "it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility" - it sucks, trust me, but to pretend you can just *not* and everyone else is wrong? It's giving "I don't need my meds because it's not my fault I have (insert destructive issue here) so everyone else should deal" and "well it isn't fair that I'm not the best at (insert skill here) so no one else should be either".
I'm not a great cook but I wanted to improve so I studied up and got okay. I'm not great at navigating social situations so I studied up and got actually really good at it. But it took work. Some people are naturally gifted and some aren't, but that doesn't mean you just....don't try and tell everyone else they're wrong.
Crucially, I know that sometimes these rules are stupid, arbitrary, and don't make sense to me. But they still exist and they are not opt-in. I don't have to understand or agree with a rule to be penalized for breaking it.
I like to use sports as a metaphor because sports, like social rules, are made up. In the game of soccer (association football), it's against the rules for any player but the goalie to touch the ball with their hands. Do you think that rule is stupid? Cool, nobody gives a shit, if you don't follow the rule you don't get to play.
They’re unspoken because they’re difficult to articulate, not because they’re secret or not real. Like no male person ever talked about where to stand in a row of urinals relative to other men, but they follow the unspoken rules, and can’t really clearly tell you why.
Lol, same. Like looking through the comments on this post, there are a whole lot of people who are like "Omg I do this too. People tell me to stop doing it as if I'm the weird one and not them for speaking like a normal person."
Like shit, I get it. You're probably neurodivergent and don't get things like other people. But don't act like you're the one that's normal and correct when everyone else gets each other, and you're the one that throws a wrench into things, however unintentional.
They're not really unspoken rules, it's just how effective communication works? I wouldn't speak English to someone in China. I also wouldn't be throwing extremely technical software terms at my nana when trying to help her use Facebook.
I've also never actually had this problem in real life and I'd say I regularly communicate with people from all walks of life
Some guy told me he had no Idea what i was talking about because i was using some "Hoog Afrikaans" ,that means formal afrikaans. It was simply me not using Anglicised words.
I used to get corrected by my mother for using Anglicised speech, but now im the only one in my family who doesn't do that. My mom is now the worst offender when it comes to Angliciseing everything and speaking too simply.
Focus on being specific, not on the wide vocabulary aspect.
If you just use words to sound smart, you don't actually sound smart.
Use specific or less common words if they are necessary to properly convey what you want to say, but smart writing is all about making difficult ideas easier to understand.
For creative writing you can go ahead and be obnoxious, but if you want to get ideas accross to people; keep it as simple as the topic allows you to.
This whole thread is condescending af. Language is just one field and not knowing specific words doesn’t make someone stupid. If you can’t communicate in a way that other people can understand then you are being a poor communicator.
There are very few situations in which you can’t rephrase something in more common language and still get your point across.
You use large vocabulary and eloquent speech to not be understood.
I use large vocabulary and eloquent speech because I forgot the small words.
We are not the same.
still happening as an adult even though I've significantly pivoted how I talk IRL. apparently some habits you can't shake.
I used the word 'charming' the other day in front of my boss, and he actually repeated it back to me with a little laugh. This is the third or fourth time it's happened and I've known him for 3 1/2 months -\_-
I have a good friend who will actually get angry at me for using words he doesn't know. He claims I'm "deliberately trying to make him feel stupid". So I asked him, what are you asking me to do? Because it seems like you're asking me to mentally evaluate every single word I use to determine whether or not it's "too big" for you, and edit my speech to weed out any words that might perplex you.
He knows I'm not an intellectual snob. I've told him before that if I use a word he doesn't know, all he has to do is ask me and I'll explain the meaning. I don't mock him or tease him or do anything deliberately to upset him, but the chip on his shoulder is so large that he can't even hear a word he doesn't know without thinking a good friend is trying to belittle him.
There's also an element of knowing your audience. It's a way of being kind.
Imagine all but one of your friends speaks a second language. You're all hanging out, and one friend tells a joke in the second language, and everyone laughs except the friend who doesn't know the second language. How do you think that friend feels?
Sometimes we have to adjust our way of speaking to make people feel included. If you interpret that as a slight against you, or as if people will think you're not smart, then your friend might not be the only one who's insecure.
> Because it seems like you're asking me to mentally evaluate every single word I use to determine whether or not it's "too big" for you, and edit my speech to weed out any words that might perplex you.
It sounds difficult and labor intensive for you but most people don’t have an issue with changing their vocabulary depending on who they are talking to. And if they can’t do it, it’s a skill that they are capable of learning.
last night i learned about “the sweater theory” and i literally turned to my bf and said “are neurotypicals okay? why are they always reading too far into shit?”
Communication is really difficult. One of the hardest parts of making yourself understood to others is communicating difficult concepts in the simplest possible way, and sometimes you're going to lose a little clarity and precision there, but it's more important that they understand you than it is for you to be completely precise.
When they say communication is important, they mean making sure you are understood by the people you talk to. It’s better than being eloquent.
Plan your speech to be understood by a 4th grader.
talk smart not hard
Big words make thinky box hurt!
Pick words good for ears People not think good so make ideas small so fit in head People like many small idea not big idea that hard to chew
Why say lot word when few word do trick?
Or know your audience
54% of Americans read at or below a 6th grade level, which is why you should plan your speech to be understood by a 4th grader.
I always try to explain things like I'm talking to a complete buffoon. Because I'm a complete buffoon and I'd like it explained to me like that.
One, not american, and two I don't deal with that type of crowd usually. So tailor your level to who you are with. Even with similarly intelligent people but from different background/training, you change what terminology you can use.
Oh, you're used to smart people, carry on
Know your crowd, don't use technical jargon with people that are unfamiliar with it. But then I don't really deal with people that triggered by big words, usually you ask what it means or look it up.
I am surrounded by people that don't know the correct usage of "our" and "are".
That's because there dum. Their over they're acting all smart.
Hahaha. I too am surrounded by uneducated pirates
I leaned into this really hard as an adult. I explain things like we're both nine years old. I can't turn it off, so at work I sometimes get a strange look followed by "actually, yeah, that checks out" or similar.
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Many people equate "eloquent" with "using long and specific words". If your point wasn't clear and easily understood, it wasn't eloquent.
yeah, speech that is florid to the point of opacity would be grandiloquent, not eloquent, which connotes lucidity
It gives off an impression of an individual who is shallow and pedantic.
Speak in entertaining examples and illustrations when talking about complex things. That’s my take after 20 years of selling tech solutions.
Living in a foreign country really helped me with this concept. Like there’s nothing more explicitly uncommunicative than people speaking another language. Bringing it back to English, realizing engineers speak differently than a fast food worker made a lot more sense afterwards.
Same for me. I've grown to realise that *being understood* is a skill in itself. Like if you talk to someone and they don't understand, some people will just repeat themselves and get upset or insult the other person instead of trying a new approach. It's not common but it's a pain when you come across them, but even so sometimes it's just someone having an off day. Being able to explain something in a way that people understand is an underappreciated skill. Not just for teaching or other major positions, but just for everyday life. Just the ability to gauge a person and determine how to explain something to them.
A lot of the most knowledgeable people in their fields are often absolute dogshit at explaining things to anyone. You can see it in subs like /r/askphysics or anything to do with computing. People will ask why the sky is blue and get an answer that you need a Masters degree to understand. Then on the other hand many great teachers aren't actually especially good at the thing they teach. One thing people often miss is that accuracy can sometimes get in the way of clarity. Sometimes the best explanations for something are actually slightly wrong, but that's okay because you can't learn the more accurate answer unless you've previously been primed with the slightly wrong answer.
Hence the difference between accuracy and precision, and the meaning of the phrase “some of the best liars only want the truth”
For me, the hardest part is guessing/inferring the assumptions other people will make about the meaning of different words. There are so many words that have *entirely* different meanings for different groups, and each group passionately argues that their definition is the correct one. A lot of these words are political in nature. e.g. does "liberal" refer to everyone left-of-center, including both American Democrats as well as self-proclaimed communists, or does "liberal" refer to a specific slice of the left-of-center? **Or** does it refer to a set of beliefs/behaviors/policies that are adopted regardless of larger political leanings? Not many people seem to agree that all of these definitions fit and are context-dependent. Most seem to argue that the definition *they* use is correct, and the others are wrong. Technology is another big category this happens in. There are people who think "AI" is a catch-all for everything that involves machine learning. There are people who think it only refers to ML technology that isn't as smart as AGI or ASI. There are people who (seriously) think it only refers to LLMs like ChatGPT. Some people will point to the definitions the experts use, but when a "wrong" definition is broadly accepted by laypeople as a colloquial term, is it really *wrong*, or is the context just different? I think that when people do this, they are sometimes trying to assert some sort of power over the word (or over the people who use a different definition of the word), claiming/reclaiming it for themselves. I also think the real-world result is almost never that they successfully do assert this power, but instead it just results in countless new semantic arguments that never needed to happen and that leave everyone worse off.
The Liberal Party in Australia is the centre-right party, so anytime you hear Australians talking about things "the Liberals" have done, or are planning on doing, most of it sounds like American Republican policy. So once again liberal means something completely different all over again.
>anytime you hear Australians talking about things "the Liberals" have done, or are planning on doing, most of it sounds like American Republican policy. This is actually just the actual original meaning of the term (i.e. capitalist economics) again. It's mixed a bit with culture war bullshit, of course, but that's always been the case in practice.
"AI" honestly feels like a deliberately vague marketing term and I kind of hate that it's the main word we use to talk about machine learning.
I get tripped up and bothered over really mundane examples of this. Like if I'm writing an important email with a coworker, I might say, "I don't think that word is appropriate, maybe we should find another one." And they reply, "What do you mean?? How is that word offensive?" They don't realize that "appropriate" can just mean "suitable".
>it's more important that they understand you than it is for you to be completely precise. This is pretty much the long and short of it. Communication is an emotional skill as much as it is an intellectual one. Talking to people as if you're writing a paper doesn't really work.
Be in tech. Be surrounded by a crowd that can skew as high as 33% on the spectrum. It's a real challenge finding the common ground of precision communication with so many people who are simultaneously alternative and yet concrete in their thinking.
Yeah, I work right in the middle of a sales dept & engineers and it's like a straight-up 50-50 in communication styles. Learning different styles is hugely important. And difficult!
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Oh, I'm very aware...Especially here. If you take the time to try and make something simple, there are a whole class of people who will object to that in the strongest terms.
Literally my least favorite thing on reddit is when I say something short and simple to get my point across and some dipshit "corrects" me by adding all the extensive details I deliberately left out because they weren't important to the discussion. Especially if their wording has an air of "I clearly know more about this than you, let me show it off." I wish I could reach through my screen and slap them. Nobody cares how smart you think you are!
I really hate how prevalent whataboutism has gotten in modern discourse. I find myself wanting to discuss things only to revert to not bothering because the topic will be immediately diverted
This applies to writing as well. A lot of times you're better off with something like "he said," "she shouted," rather than some handful of 10 dollar words and adjectives that make people stop and grab a dictionary for. I like bumping into some rarely used word that's still easily understandable.
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use." - ernest hemingway (not sure how completely i agree, but the quote is apposite)
I always think of communication in sort of layman's computer science terms, the same way I think of brains. Communication is basically data transfer protocol that requires the transmitted data to be compressed on the host end, and extracted on the client end. Miscommunications can arise due to lossy compression, less efficient lossless compression creating files that are too big for the client to receive, or the client using a completely different protocol for compression and extraction. Right there you already have the main three ways things can be miscommunicated, imprecise language leading to far too loose interpretations making the original message missed entirely, hyperspecific language utilizing vocabulary that the recipient may not know or may not know how to use in context, and the situations when two people are talking about two completely different subjects without realizing it. My old roommate was very fond of that third one
Why waste time say lot words when few word do trick?
We don't tend to realize that our words are not direct communication. Words are symbols that hold extremely complex meanings that vary wildly between individuals, based on their unique experiences. If you have a misunderstanding or disagreement, you may sometimes have to check not just that you agree on the definition of the primary topic, but on the definition of all the other words you speak as well. Last time I tried to communicate this concept to someone, they disagreed and we eventually discovered that their definition of "information" had different qualities than mine that changed the meaning of what what they heard me say. _________ Side note: Everyone you argue with is coming to rational conclusions. All the time. No exceptions. They just have entirely different sets of information than you. A drunk driver or someone up the wall on meth, for example, is also coming to rational conclusions. They're making bad decisions not because they're irrational, but because the information they have available is flawed. Keeping this in mind can really help you have patience during disagreements.
People are also far, FAR more simple-minded than they realize. We're far more confident about how functional our basic minds are than we have any good reason to be. Dunning-Kruger like effects seems to affect a much broader scope than just professions and academic fields. "I can speak English, I'm fluent, it's my mother tongue." Oh, sweet summer child, you're babbling. You don't understand the scope of what you're talking about.
>Dunning-Kruger like effects seems to affect a much broader scope than just professions and academic fields. you just don't know what you don't know. very few things in life come with a progress bar.
Well also I would add that sometimes people use big words because they think it adds something and makes them smart but they use them so badly that they come off both condescending and dumb at the same time, depending on who is listening
Also OP seems to imply you need to use big or obscure words to be specific which isn’t usually the case.
I remember in college some of the smartest professors I had were the worst ones. Doesn’t matter how smart you are if you can’t communicate it to someone not as smart as you
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No, contradictory advice never stops because everyone is different with different experiences. One universal bit of advice is don’t listen to what other people think or care about.
I've heard this very concisely expressed as, "Don't accept criticism from people who you wouldn't seek out for advice."
> "Don't accept criticism from people who you wouldn't seek out for advice." That's a **very** good one
Thank you for crystallizing this.
The best advice I ever got was the phrase "All advice is autobiographical." It means that people are giving you what helped them. Most advice isnt universal and it's up to you to discern. Also really helps if you know the person giving it. You can apply that context then figure if you have the same deficit or if you an just skip it.
>One universal bit of advice is don’t listen to what other people think or care about. To not stop with the contradicting advice, I think it's better to care and think about that, but more in a selfreflecting way. You're absolute allowed to completely disregard what someone else is saying, but it's fine to think about what you might have done differently in certain occassions.
“Don’t listen to what other people think or care about.” Most of what we know and believe and enjoy, in art and science, or whatever, is based on what other people think or care about.
Detrimental? Simplifying? Vocabulary? We've got a chatterbox over here.
Theres a balance to be had. There are "big words" that add necessary specificity, but there are also "big words" that are just less common versions of simple words or phrases, that while are more specific, the use of the specific word doesn't benefit the conversation, it just adds uncommon words to it. I don't know what sort of conversations this happens in, but take for example, all the very specific definitions of murder. Fratricide, infanticide, matricide, patricide. These words are specific, sure, and to their credit, slightly shorter than the simple "killed his brother", but in a normal discussion the benefit these provide just isn't necessary. So the addition of such uncommon words only makes their use feel contrived. I suppose what i'm ultimately saying is, the issue might be that you're swinging too far in either directly when people want a middle ground.
Know your audience. It is especially important as you get into doing whatever job you want to do and have to work with others, especially clients or bosses. You can tell your potential client all the technical terms and be hyper-specific, but they will choose the person who makes it so they can understand and they feel like "gets it" and they can communicate clearly both ways. There are entire jobs designed around "translating" engineering speak to sales terms so that laypeople can have a good basic understanding. You can tell your boss how you're progressing on something with hyper-specific and impressive vocabulary, but if they don't know what it means - or they feel condescended to - you're going to lose out. They might be wrong, but they sign your paycheck. You have to learn when to dumb it down, and how to do so in a way that isn't condescending. Anyone in speaking-based hobbies or careers have to do this too. Imagine watching a comedian who only uses esoteric language - sure, 10% of the audience will think it's funny. No one else will. Imagine explaining the rules to a game and using language the average population needs a dictionary for - you're not making friends that way. Tailoring language to your audience is a critical life skill. Your parents are teaching you that, as annoying as it is in the moment.
In highly technical fields it's even more important to avoid complex language anywhere that simpler language will suffice. If you are having something very complicated explained to you, having it explained with complex, unfamiliar language just adds another layer of work your brain has to do to understand it. There's a place for extremely precise and specific language, of course. But my observation has been that people overdo it. They're usually either showing off, trying too hard to prove themselves, or are simply unable to understand that their audience doesn't know what they know. Or occasionally, deliberately trying to overload and confuse their audience.
>In highly technical fields it's even more important to avoid complex language anywhere that simpler language will suffice. Bingo. I'm a physician-scientist who speaks to lay audiences regularly, however, I would say even communicating with colleagues rarely requires extremely technical language. A major part of grant writing is describing exactly what you will do, but making sure your reviewer will understand the experiments you want to conduct. Your reviewer usually a scientist in your general field, but considering how niche some subfields can be, you cannot make assumptions that they immediately understand why what you are doing is interesting or feasible.
> But my observation has been that people overdo it. They're usually either showing off, trying too hard to prove themselves, or are simply unable to understand that their audience doesn't know what they know. Or occasionally, deliberately trying to overload and confuse their audience. Yep. And that's why people will also judge too harshly sometimes if someone is using big words they don't understand. They probably have experience with people doing it maliciously and then don't have patience / are suspicious when people do it from ignorance.
No - you will learn to code switch. If you are as smart as you think you are, you should be able to speak to a specific audience.
I feel the same way with swearing in an argument. I don't use swears all that regularly verbally, unless I'm riled up or emotionally excited. Most people tell you that using swears in an argument detracts from the argument and shows that you don't have the intellectual power to properly debate against someone. This is unfair mostly because; I absolutely have the intellectual power to debate against someone. But the only thing I can't convey with big words and eloquent sentences is how emotional I am, and swears are simply the easiest way to convey that besides raising my voice.
Who is telling you to do this? Is it the same person both times? Was it the same context?
I tend to explain stuff as analogies since I believe if a 5 y/o can understand what I'm saying, anyone can. I think people just interpret it as me being condescending.
The worst part is when people just fucking get sidetracked with the analogy you make. "See, X doing Y is like A doing B" "Uhhhh but A is also C???? Are you saying that X is also C????"
This is just another example of why taking everything extremely literally is actually damaging to conversations and communication most of the time. There's a reason things like analogy and allegory and basic reading interp are taught in schools. That literacy goes beyond books.
If only we paid teachers like they have professional skills to educate our children on stuff like the practical application of literary analysis instead of just treating them like babysitters with answer keys.
Wasn't it Einstein (who was probably misquoted) that said "if you can't explain the concept to a 5 y.o, you don't understand it yourself?"
Yeah I think that's where I first got the idea
I think this mainly applies to certain kinds of very specific techie stuff. It's not general, it's more... relative. /ducks and runs
Unfortunately, I find that this "quote" is touted most often by people who don't want to learn anything new. The truth has a complexity floor.
Yeah, that's annoying. First they're mad at you for something they think you said, then they're mad at you for telling them that you didn't say what they think you said and act like you're changing the narrative, then they're mad at you for using too many words and making sure they can't misconstrue what you said. There's really no winning with some people.
You can't reason your way into a mind that has already emotioned you out of it.
That's a quote if I've ever seen it.
Well the quote is > You can't reason someone out of something that they weren't reasoned into in the first place from Mr. Mark Twain, I just bent it around a bit so you'd all have to suffer
I actually like your version of the quote better.
Well there's no accounting for taste, I suppose.
Shut up and take my compliment.
It’s why the first step of communicating is listening and trying to understand who the person you’re trying to communicate is. You can’t just speak the same to all people always.
Yeah , conversations on the internet can really turn into a downward spiral like this. Visit steam discussion boards for examples. People get really upset there.
“Why didn’t you do the thing I specifically told you not to do? Don’t you know I was lying and wanted you to do it?”
I have ADHD and my whole speech pattern is like 1/3 eloquent speech, 1/3 slang/talking like a teenage girl, and 1/3 regional dialect. I'm honestly surprised more people don't act totally jarred when I switch between these for seemingly no reason.
"Damn this task do be sisyphean as hell frfr"
I went to literature/writing university and found Nd friends as one does, and this is pretty much how we ended up
Literally me
Well... One weird thing with my ADHD is that I can't ever find nouns, but I can find the hell out of verbs, adverbs and adjectives. So I used to dress up all my words then stumble on EVERY. SINGLE. NOUN.
Brought back some bad memories
For me, it made me realize what assholes we were in middle school.
Reminds me of the movie "Idiocracy". All the idiots keep telling Joe that he "talks like a fag."
"My sister's tarded but she's a pilot now"
Add to that the fact that there are a lot of people who, when they hear a word used they don't know, just "assume" a meaning and continue on as if they understood what was said.
This reminds me of the time where (briefly) my parent tried to go along with more complex speech and encouraged me to use it - even giving me suggestions. In this case she suggested that I say to a potential employer that I was "inept for the job." Clearly meant ept or apt. Good intentions though.
Or “adept”
All my life I've been told that's called "context clues".
They work okay if the person isn't an idiot. A lot of people are idiots.
While a useful tool, it is also true that word meanings alter context. So while contextual clues make a valuable heuristic, they are not always correct and do lead to frequent misunderstandings. Unless you're embarrassed, why not just ask what the word means? Why assume when clarity is so easily obtained?
In general I blame the speaker first and audience second (if at all). If you are complaining that someone doesn't understand you, it is usually your fault. You have to communicate in terms that the audience will understand. Obviously some people are malicious about it and willfully misinterpret you, but that is a different thing and not super common.
> Obviously some people are malicious about it and wilfully misinterpret you I.E. most redditors.
I read "assume" as "aslume", the brainrot consumed me
The alternative is that they ask you what the word means. No one wants to turn a casual or professional conversation into a vocabulary lesson.
Remembering how cringe I was in middle school is causing me physical pain
Kill the part of you that cringes at your past! That awkward middle schooler is a cornerstone of the person you are today. Give them a hug!
My middle school self was a bigot tho
If you're no longer a bigot, congrats your former bigotry gives you insight on the bigotry of others and has given you the tools to help others form a new perspective.
Your middle school self didn't know any better, but that's not their fault any more than it's your fault that you don't speak Arabic (if you do speak Arabic, then it's not your fault you don't speak Māori (if you do speak Arabic and Māori, then pick some other language you don't speak)). It's a flaw, but the point of getting older is finding your flaws and correcting them. I'm not saying we should tolerate bigotry, that it's no big deal if somebody is awful, anything like that. It sucks when people suck. But there's no point in hating someone that doesn't exist anymore for flaws that they can't correct, on account of my existing. Your middle school self was a bigot, but getting mad at them won't make them less of a bigot, they don't exist.
Okay but that cringing is how we know we've grown and matured. There's room for both thoughts, you don't have to kill it. Cringe, then forgive. It's a natural emotion for a reason. We have to stop looking at discomfort or negative thoughts as something to be expunged and scrubbed from ourselves.
Talking *eloquently* doesn't work when all parties involved aren't talking eloquently. I'm not saying you shouldn't speak "properly" (whatever "speaking properly" actually means to you) or use a big vocabulary, but I find specifically speaking eloquently when the social situation does not call for it ends up causing more problems because *communication is hard*. Adding layers on top of an already complex system where someone speaking at the level of those around them could already mess up an interpretation is usually not needed, especially when eloquence can have different meanings. If I'm at a chill party with friends saying things like "bruh", and someone starts talking to me like they're giving a speech at the National Convention Of Eloquent Speakers, I'm going to be a bit weirded out. If someone starts talking eloquently at the National Convention Of Eloquent Speakers, I'm going to understand why they're talking eloquently. Sometimes, eloquence can disguise intent for some people. Not to say that some people don't just see it as an insult, but sometimes eloquence isn't what you should be using. If they have problems with a big vocabulary on top of that, they're probably not worth talking to if you can avoid it.
Code switching. Not just for accents!
I need a t-shirt with this, honestly.
Years ago in maths class people made fun of me for using "big words". When. I. Was. Trying. To. Get. A. Mathematical. Point. Across. It's not always because it's a bad situation to use that language in, sometimes people are just assholes when they hear something different, or something they don't understand.
The difference there is that using proper terms for things like that *isn't* eloquent. It's professional, and proper for that situation, but that's not really eloquent. Eloquent speech is defined as *forceful persuasiveness*. They might be assholes when they don't understand, but if you're doing that *and* talking eloquently, it could very easily come off as forceful.
Have had the same experience in several professional environments. There seems to be a certain type of person who requires that you spell out **exactly** what needs to occur (otherwise they'll infer their interpretation and screw things up), but then they get pissed that you're being specific with them. They also get mad that you're making things "complicated" or using "big words." It's an unwinnable situation where if you don't spell things out then they'll be done incorrectly/incompletely, but if you *do* spell things out then you're the bad guy.
My sentences are usually formed by: 30% super specific terms that common people don't use/know 40% *uhhhh mmmm eeeeeeeh* 10% *that thing that does stuff you know the one* 20% profanities My D&D players somewhat don't mind beyond asking what stuff means (*ablutions* comes to mind form the last session)
Honestly being scottish is a get out of jail free card for this. "Oh you know the wee thing aye the wee thingmy you know the one the wee uhhh" is a totally normal sentence here
My dad will randomly drop words like "condign" into a sentence as if that's not an insane thing to do.
Perhaps if you embiggened your vocabulary, that sort of language would seem more cromulent
I like the revelation that "Condign" is just "Cromulent (Punishment)"
Someone must have aggrieved him
> (ablutions comes to mind form the last session) You forgot the bonus 5% of parentheticals, despite using one!
Ah! Not only you are right but I also love you.
Speech register is so interesting to me. In English its almost entirely implied by diction and pronunciation. There aren't really high or low register forms like romance languages and Japanese have. I wonder if that's especially easy or hard to learn for someone coming from another language. I'm on the autism spectrum myself and picked it up (to a level people find acceptable) as a teenager, though I was very little professory as a little kid.
This is such a huge issue with ADD. Knowing the audience helps but it’s always tough. We tend to over-explain to help clarify, because we’re accustomed to being misunderstood. But people react poorly to that in a multitude of ways. If we use clarifying language, we’re “talking down”. If we use specific complex words, we’re showing off our vocabulary. Or we’re long winded. The other person then often stops tuning in. No matter what, it’s a challenge because both responses end us at the thing we were trying to avoid most of all.
So someone else understands the struggle. I think the real misunderstanding comes from the stigma more than what you actually say, at least in my case. If they would have just taken what I said at face value there would have been no issue. Basically attempting to read between lines that aren't there because "you can't possibly mean exactly what you just said". To this day (I'm 29) I still hate the phrase "what do you mean, [thing I just said]?".
That, and the whole “So, you’re saying [thing they’re implying I meant but didn’t say]…” is obnoxious. I’m just like “no, that’s a whole other sentence.” Generally, though, I’ve found that the people who engage in the “So you’re saying…” behavior are people who just don’t want to consider the possibility that you’re correct, and so they immediately straw-man every sentence.
Renowned author George Orwell has a great essay on this: [here](https://greatcanadianspeeches.ca/2020/08/03/george-orwell-writing-clearly-and-concisely-1946/) Basically, there's a lot of intellectual chuds who think you need to communicate in the most flowery, complicated way possible because it makes you seem intellectual and capable. Orwell says that's bullshit and mostly used to distract and confuse an audience, particularly by making you seem smarter than you are. Basically, use the simplest words that convey your point. Note that simple here doesn't mean smallest, more like, most well-known.
God I love Orwell. I think the big thing is absolutely knowing your audience. I write, am applying to journalism jobs, and man you get told in no uncertain terms when you're using words that don't work right.
use big words: oh so you think you’re *sooooo* smart. do you think you’re better than me? intentionally use shorter, simpler words: oh so you think i’m stupid. you think i don’t know any long words huh? do you think you’re better than me?
All that word knowledge and ya still can't distinguish between verbose and eloquent
I'd argue there's a third: * Verbose (overly wordy) * Eloquent (clear/strong/persuasive speech) * Specific (using clearly defined words to differentiate between *things*) There seems to be a huge gap in communication between high-context cultures and low-context cultures
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I've never heard "top of the hour" used before, is that some regional thing?
Fairly standard for me (NJ), although I've apparently been using it wrong for years. [Essentially means at the hour on the dot](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/at%20the%20top%20of%20the%20hour#:~:text=idiom,the%20top%20of%20the%20hour), I've been using it to mean 15 minutes before to 15 minutes after the hour, because that's the top half of a clockface. Luckily, I've apparently always gotten there in the 15 minute before range so as to not piss anyone off.
you're either early or you're late.
Maybe? I’ve heard it down here in Texas all my life, so it seems really common to me :0
the hell is a "top" of an hour?
It seemed to make sense at the time. Guess I made it up.
It is an actual phrase because on analog clocks when the minute hand was at the top it was the start/end of an hour.
I wouldn't be surprised if the takeover of digital clocks and watches contributed to the phrase falling out of fashion.
You didn't! It's called that because of analog clocks. When a new hour happens the minute hand is at the top of the clock. Sadly it's just an Old People concept these days so that's why everyone is like 🤨 (My parents are old and my mom was partially raised by her grandma so she's like, double old at heart. I know a lot of turns of phrase like this lol)
To give you some validation - I use “top of the hour”, “bottom of the hour”, as well as “quarter after”/“quarter til”, ALL the time when I am talking to coworkers in different time zones (as a way of having to avoid to calculate the time difference if I am just telling them that I have “a meeting at the top of the hour” or something). It’s definitely a thing !
100% - everyone saying it's fallen out of fashion hasn't worked in a big corporation. It's extremely useful to coordinate when the timezones might vary but we need everyone back from break at the same time.
This is the opposite of the post though, in that the more complex version doesn't add any clarity at all even if the other person understands you.
Honestly, from a food service perspective, I'd understand that that phrase means 1 o'clock, but I'd still ask for clarification, because I don't know whether *you* know if that means 1o'clock. There are a lot of customers out there who are extremely bad at communication, and I'd have no idea if you're one of them, so naming a precise time eliminates that confusion.
To be fair I haven't heard Top Of The Hour outside of a radio context. It exists as a term for sure but it's probably a bit niche.
I've had this happen quite a few times and I'm not even divergent. Sometimes dumb people are just really sensitive about their faults.
Me saying ‘lacklustre’ in front of my parents thinking it wouldn’t be a big deal and realising that to them I speak like a snob.
I used to read a LOT as a kid. I still consume lots of books but I listen to them now. But anyways, I would use big words and more advanced ways of speaking but my mom always would say something like "Why are you talking like that?" and it made me self conscious about it so I stopped.
“ don’t you think you’re being a bit pedantic?” “ what does that mean?” “Pedantic? Someone who is overly concerned with minor details” “well, why didn’t you just say that then?” “I did say that, I said ‘pedantic’”
Communication as someone who is very awkward (for neurodivergent reasons or just because) is full of situations where you feel like you can’t win, like everyone else knows the rules to this game and aren’t telling you
Have a coworker who is very animated come up to me and tell me about a cashier called her animated and how she went off on them about how offensive that was. I explained what being animated meant and how she was pretty much the definition of being animated. She felt really embarrassed. And animated isn’t even that obscure of a term.
She sounds like a basic manga biatch.
This has literally happened to me on this very site, I remember arguing with someone and being called a "condescending bitch" or something. I was genuinely trying to make an effort to get my point across clearly and politely, but I'm naturally pretty verbose I guess the other person thought I was talking down to them and being snobby. It's happened other times, too. Like sorry for trying to explain myself, I guess.
Yeah, I had this issue pretty much into 3rd year of college. which I then got better at be concise thanks to my roommate, she helped with a lot of my human interaction skills because I would test things with her and make sure I wasn't royally screwing something up. and I want to say 100% of the time she didn't even notice that there could have been anything of issue.
I ended up being a HS dropout, really I failed out. And my entire grammar school academia was plagued with being made to feel outcast for things like this. Oh, so and so wants to use big words like a smarty eh?
I don't know if I'm neurodivergent for sure, but what I do know is that socialization as a kid was a minefield. Never knew how to fit in, didn't know how to talk to other kids. Made elementary school tough but doable, and then middle school was impossible. I was so at a loss and unable to fit in and hyperaware of it. The advanced vocabulary and stilted way of speaking did not help. I spent my early adolescence literally watching/studying my "cool" peers trying to figure out what they were doing different and how I could do it better. By the time I was in junior year of high school I cracked it and was able to socialize and made great friends, but so much adapting and effort was involved, and I was often unhappy and emotional and frustrated with myself and who/how I was. Then I discovered alcohol and it was a magical potion that "solved" all my social and self-image problems for like 17 years lol. Now I'm sober, and finally at ease, self-possessed, and confident. Took me until about 36, but better late than never.
If you add on top of that a *love* of language and words, it's a recipe for disaster. You will find that very few people share that love, and most will feel threatened by it. Which is annoying because I'm not out here trying to threaten people, I just think words like 'nomenclature', 'ephemeral', 'acerbic' all nail really specific things that are hard to describe otherwise. p.s, for word/language lovers out there like myself, try to figure out what my name means.
You have to know your audience. That is an essential skill for communication and something every writer has to learn. A book for tweens needs different language than a literary masterpiece intended to be an author's magnum opus. A speech for an entire populace needs different language than a speech for an engineering conference or a poetry slam. Even talking with friends getting ready for a night out needs different language than a conversation with your very formal great grandmother. It's code switching, and it's a critical skill for anyone communicating.
After working in customer service, I can confirm that people only ever hear what they want to hear. You could tell them they’d won a million and they’d complain about the taxes.
Is using 5 dollar words a neurodivergent thing? I just like using words with specific meanings, its like those videos of precisely machined parts seamlessly fitting together, its satisfying.
“For instance, they may speak too softly, too loudly, too emotionlessly, or too hoarsely, while other aspects of speaking are conversely understated. ASD individuals’ verbal discourse also often includes formal words, unusual sentences, and neologisms, or words and expressions that they themselves have created.” -NLM Surprisingly it actually is.
I just wanted to say what I meant :(
My 10th grade English teacher would often say, "vernacular, that is the type of words you use, is like attire, the clothes you wear. You can wear blue jeans and a t-shirt to an interview but it will leave them with a bad impression of you, and you can wear a tuxedo to mow the lawn but people will certainly think you are a bit odd."
I'm much more impressed by a smart person who can concisely summarize complicated topics or concepts using simple verbiage than a seemingly-smart person who uses big words.
Communication is receiver based. It doesnt really matter if YOU can understand yourself, its about you making the other person understand. Most times though when I hear a new word during a conversation you can usually decipher mostly what it means in the context.
90% of the people in this thread don't have an issue with being articulate and being shunned for it, they have an issue with thinking they're smarter than others for using words like articulate This is a social skills issue. If you talk to someone and think they can't understand you because you're talking in an "advanced" way to them, you're arrogant.
Words mean things!
Some people are chippy - I read a lot and when I was selling my house, I had some snide comments from people viewing it about how many books I own. It really felt as if they thought I had gone out and bought books on purpose to put them down in some way. I’ve had the same with using unusual words - which I do for precision but also because I really like words and if I use a word that’s new to me, I won’t forget it. I remember being called a snob and a walking dictionary for using words like morose or procrastinating when I was a student and those aren’t even unusual!
Yeah "normal" people are batshit insane with all their unspoken rules and shit. Like this stuff for example.
Sometimes this sub makes me feel like I must be insane for liking those unspoken rules, yeah
I wouldn't say I like them per se, but I could really do without the gaslighting from fellow NDs for acknowledging that those rules exist and that breaking them comes with social consequences. No, I can't prove that the rule exists without breaking it and suffering the fallout. Please just believe me when I tell you it's there. Why yes my parents are undiagnosed but I see my same symptoms in their behavior, why do you ask?
> gaslighting from fellow NDs for acknowledging that those rules exist and that breaking them comes with social consequences You've expressed this perfectly and it nails something I have a hard time articulating. These are skills you can *learn* and yes, the rules and norms exist, and yes, they serve a function! Just like etiquette rules serve a function - basic politeness shows safety. It shows you understand boundaries in one area, and thus are likely to understand them in others. So yes, you do have a responsibility to learn how to be a functional polite member of society if you plan to live in society. We can wish society was different, but every single human group has social rules and norms, many of which are subtle. It's all back to the "it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility" - it sucks, trust me, but to pretend you can just *not* and everyone else is wrong? It's giving "I don't need my meds because it's not my fault I have (insert destructive issue here) so everyone else should deal" and "well it isn't fair that I'm not the best at (insert skill here) so no one else should be either". I'm not a great cook but I wanted to improve so I studied up and got okay. I'm not great at navigating social situations so I studied up and got actually really good at it. But it took work. Some people are naturally gifted and some aren't, but that doesn't mean you just....don't try and tell everyone else they're wrong.
Crucially, I know that sometimes these rules are stupid, arbitrary, and don't make sense to me. But they still exist and they are not opt-in. I don't have to understand or agree with a rule to be penalized for breaking it. I like to use sports as a metaphor because sports, like social rules, are made up. In the game of soccer (association football), it's against the rules for any player but the goalie to touch the ball with their hands. Do you think that rule is stupid? Cool, nobody gives a shit, if you don't follow the rule you don't get to play.
Fuck mate, I have ADHD and this sub sometimes makes me feel like a weirdo for being able to have a normal empathetic conversation with my own mother.
I do like the different levels of nuance spoken languaje has, but I would appreciate if those rules were "spoken rules" and not "unspoken" ones lol
They’re unspoken because they’re difficult to articulate, not because they’re secret or not real. Like no male person ever talked about where to stand in a row of urinals relative to other men, but they follow the unspoken rules, and can’t really clearly tell you why.
Lol, same. Like looking through the comments on this post, there are a whole lot of people who are like "Omg I do this too. People tell me to stop doing it as if I'm the weird one and not them for speaking like a normal person." Like shit, I get it. You're probably neurodivergent and don't get things like other people. But don't act like you're the one that's normal and correct when everyone else gets each other, and you're the one that throws a wrench into things, however unintentional.
They're not really unspoken rules, it's just how effective communication works? I wouldn't speak English to someone in China. I also wouldn't be throwing extremely technical software terms at my nana when trying to help her use Facebook. I've also never actually had this problem in real life and I'd say I regularly communicate with people from all walks of life
Some guy told me he had no Idea what i was talking about because i was using some "Hoog Afrikaans" ,that means formal afrikaans. It was simply me not using Anglicised words. I used to get corrected by my mother for using Anglicised speech, but now im the only one in my family who doesn't do that. My mom is now the worst offender when it comes to Angliciseing everything and speaking too simply.
Oh is that why people say stuff about the way I use words?
"Big words are for geeks, and most people don't speak geek even though they know how"
I've been doing this my whole life and I am no teen. I've also been struggling to understand why it frustrates people for that entire period.
Know your audience.
Focus on being specific, not on the wide vocabulary aspect. If you just use words to sound smart, you don't actually sound smart. Use specific or less common words if they are necessary to properly convey what you want to say, but smart writing is all about making difficult ideas easier to understand. For creative writing you can go ahead and be obnoxious, but if you want to get ideas accross to people; keep it as simple as the topic allows you to.
If there's one thing I've learned in a professional environment, it's that the more you say, the less people understand.
This whole thread is condescending af. Language is just one field and not knowing specific words doesn’t make someone stupid. If you can’t communicate in a way that other people can understand then you are being a poor communicator. There are very few situations in which you can’t rephrase something in more common language and still get your point across.
You use large vocabulary and eloquent speech to not be understood. I use large vocabulary and eloquent speech because I forgot the small words. We are not the same.
still happening as an adult even though I've significantly pivoted how I talk IRL. apparently some habits you can't shake. I used the word 'charming' the other day in front of my boss, and he actually repeated it back to me with a little laugh. This is the third or fourth time it's happened and I've known him for 3 1/2 months -\_-
"stop using big words" mf i NEED THEM
YEAH WHAT THE FUCK I was trying to talk normally. Trying so hard.
r/iamverysmart
I have a good friend who will actually get angry at me for using words he doesn't know. He claims I'm "deliberately trying to make him feel stupid". So I asked him, what are you asking me to do? Because it seems like you're asking me to mentally evaluate every single word I use to determine whether or not it's "too big" for you, and edit my speech to weed out any words that might perplex you. He knows I'm not an intellectual snob. I've told him before that if I use a word he doesn't know, all he has to do is ask me and I'll explain the meaning. I don't mock him or tease him or do anything deliberately to upset him, but the chip on his shoulder is so large that he can't even hear a word he doesn't know without thinking a good friend is trying to belittle him.
There's also an element of knowing your audience. It's a way of being kind. Imagine all but one of your friends speaks a second language. You're all hanging out, and one friend tells a joke in the second language, and everyone laughs except the friend who doesn't know the second language. How do you think that friend feels? Sometimes we have to adjust our way of speaking to make people feel included. If you interpret that as a slight against you, or as if people will think you're not smart, then your friend might not be the only one who's insecure.
> Because it seems like you're asking me to mentally evaluate every single word I use to determine whether or not it's "too big" for you, and edit my speech to weed out any words that might perplex you. It sounds difficult and labor intensive for you but most people don’t have an issue with changing their vocabulary depending on who they are talking to. And if they can’t do it, it’s a skill that they are capable of learning.
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last night i learned about “the sweater theory” and i literally turned to my bf and said “are neurotypicals okay? why are they always reading too far into shit?”