Short words are best
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that short words are best. Now we have proof. The March 2006 issue of The Atlantic Monthly cited a piece of research that shows that besides clouding the meaning, the use of long words actually makes the reader think the author is stupid. The title of the research illustrates the problem eloquently:
“Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.”
I love it when scientists have a sense of humour. Good for you Daniel M. Oppenheimer.
When I wrote about readability in an earlier post, I listed some formulas that could be used to test how readable a piece of text is. All of them take account of word length.
What Oppenheimer did was to get seventy-one Stanford undergraduates to evaluate different writing samples. He created a “highly complex” version of each original text by replacing each noun, verb and adjective in it with the longest synomym. This is the kind of writing by thesaurus that many business people and techies employ when they want to sound knowledgeable and important or because they think writing like they speak will make them sound lightweight.
Thanks to Oppenheimer, we know that the opposite is, in fact, true. He says “one thing is certain, write as simply and plainly as possible and it’s more likely you’ll be thought of as intelligent.”
Oplossingsgerichtmanagement » Blog Archive » Goed schrijven? Houd het eenvoudig! wrote:
[...] Badlanguage [...]
Posted on 20-May-06 at 7:49 am | Permalink
Sam Mooney wrote:
Thanks. I knew it all along and now I can cite scientific proof. Short words, short sentences.
Posted on 10-Jun-06 at 10:25 am | Permalink
Manage Your Writing wrote:
Short words are best…
In his blog Bad Language, London-based Matthew Stibbe cites (by way of Atlantic Monthly) research by Daniel M. Oppenheimer that shows that besides clouding the meaning, the use of long words actually makes the reader think the author is stupid….
Posted on 13-Jun-06 at 12:53 pm | Permalink
Bad Language / Short words are popular wrote:
[...] A while ago I wrote that short words are best. Now, according to a BBC report from the Oxford University Press, they are also the most popular. The top ten nouns are: [...]
Posted on 22-Jun-06 at 10:35 am | Permalink
Bad Language / The hidden cost of ten dollar words wrote:
[...] Ever used a foreign word in a piece of writing? Some obscure thesaurus word or technical jargon? Even better a bit of Latin? As I’ve already written, long words actually make you look more stupid, not more intelligent. But an article in Slate reveals a new risk: public ridicule. Don’t get me wrong: I get a kick out of $10 words, too, and even use them now and again to make my pieces showier. But the psychic surcharge deters me from using them often enough to fall into the faux-erudition trap that bedevils undisciplined, rich writers like Martin Peretz, co-owner and editor-in-chief of the New Republic. He burns through $10 words and phrases like they’re kindling. [...]
Posted on 08-Aug-06 at 6:57 am | Permalink
Bad Language / Multitasking makes us stupid wrote:
[...] news that long words make us look stupid (see Short words are best) comes a report that multitasking makes us [...]
Posted on 29-Jan-08 at 6:02 pm | Permalink
Walton wrote:
As an ESL teacher working in Kazakhstan, I am grateful for your support. I keep trying to convince my students not to follow the formal Russian style which calls for long words, long sentences, abuse of useless referential words, and piling on redundant clauses. Of course, when writing formal English they copy all of these tendencies. Now they will see it’s not just me!
Posted on 11-Feb-08 at 9:05 am | Permalink