It’s counterproductive if you have a big vocabulary but use it to show off (which is unfortunately how most people use them). A big vocabulary used correctly can be invaluable.
There are two ways to develop your vocabulary. You can make it more florid, by adding lots of long obscure synonyms. This is the image most people have of a large vocabulary. Or you can make it more precise, by taking words you already know, that are more specific or more vivid than their everyday equivalents, and focus on being able to actually use them in conversation.
For instance, consider the word “burp”. If I were being more florid, I might use “eructation” instead. You’re right that this would be counterproductive. However, if I were focusing on precision, I might use “belch”. Most poeple know what a belch is, and it sounds more vivid and exciting than “burp”, but few people use it in conversation.
For an example of a large vocabulary that is precise rather than florid, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass has one of the densest vocabularies of anything on Project Gutenberg, yet it’s still quite readable.
It’s counterproductive if you have a big vocabulary but use it to show off (which is unfortunately how most people use them). A big vocabulary used correctly can be invaluable.
It’s not clear to me what “correctly” means here. An illustrative example: I recently wanted to use “exacting” in a paper because, well, it was exactly the word to use in that sentence. I know about twelve similar words that each didn’t quite fit for one reason or another, and I am not at all trying to show off my vocabulary by using it.
My advisor looks at the draft and says “look at this typo, did you mean to type exciting?” (He is not a native English speaker.) “No, I meant exacting; it means that it has precise requirements.” “Oh. Well, that’s confusing, you should change it.”
Most of the people in my field are not native English speakers; if he has trouble understanding it, likely they will as well. Is it correct to use it?
Most of the people in my field are not native English speakers; if he has trouble understanding it, likely they will as well. Is it correct to use it?
No. The purpose of writing is to be understood, if your writing will not be understood then it should be changed. Write to the audience you have, not the audience you want to have.
Yes. That reaction of your advisor is so annoying! If he doesn’t understand a word, he should just look it up, instead of assuming you made a typo. It makes me think of that translation I had to revise once, where the translator had translated ‘quartile’ as if it said ‘quarter’. I didn’t know that word either, so I looked it up, and there was a perfectly good Dutch translation in the dictionary.
Are the people in your field all/mostly the same nationality, BTW? If not, it’s impossible to take everyone’s deficiencies into account anyway. A Frenchman, a Dutchman and a Spaniard would each misunderstand different words, and they’re all from the same language family.
Another thing is that words that native speakers think of as ‘difficult’ may not be so difficult for non-native speakers. The ‘difficult’ words are often imported from Latin or Greek, and have been imported in many other languages as well. Whereas words that are perfectly ordinary for you may be very difficult for us, like the names for kitchen implements, foodstuffs, articles of clothing, and the like (what do you mean a pocketbook is a woman’s handbag? that one confused me so much, the first time I encountered it).
It’s counterproductive if you have a big vocabulary but use it to show off (which is unfortunately how most people use them). A big vocabulary used correctly can be invaluable.
There are two ways to develop your vocabulary. You can make it more florid, by adding lots of long obscure synonyms. This is the image most people have of a large vocabulary. Or you can make it more precise, by taking words you already know, that are more specific or more vivid than their everyday equivalents, and focus on being able to actually use them in conversation.
For instance, consider the word “burp”. If I were being more florid, I might use “eructation” instead. You’re right that this would be counterproductive. However, if I were focusing on precision, I might use “belch”. Most poeple know what a belch is, and it sounds more vivid and exciting than “burp”, but few people use it in conversation.
For an example of a large vocabulary that is precise rather than florid, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass has one of the densest vocabularies of anything on Project Gutenberg, yet it’s still quite readable.
It’s not clear to me what “correctly” means here. An illustrative example: I recently wanted to use “exacting” in a paper because, well, it was exactly the word to use in that sentence. I know about twelve similar words that each didn’t quite fit for one reason or another, and I am not at all trying to show off my vocabulary by using it.
My advisor looks at the draft and says “look at this typo, did you mean to type exciting?” (He is not a native English speaker.) “No, I meant exacting; it means that it has precise requirements.” “Oh. Well, that’s confusing, you should change it.”
Most of the people in my field are not native English speakers; if he has trouble understanding it, likely they will as well. Is it correct to use it?
No. The purpose of writing is to be understood, if your writing will not be understood then it should be changed. Write to the audience you have, not the audience you want to have.
Yes. That reaction of your advisor is so annoying! If he doesn’t understand a word, he should just look it up, instead of assuming you made a typo. It makes me think of that translation I had to revise once, where the translator had translated ‘quartile’ as if it said ‘quarter’. I didn’t know that word either, so I looked it up, and there was a perfectly good Dutch translation in the dictionary.
Are the people in your field all/mostly the same nationality, BTW? If not, it’s impossible to take everyone’s deficiencies into account anyway. A Frenchman, a Dutchman and a Spaniard would each misunderstand different words, and they’re all from the same language family.
Another thing is that words that native speakers think of as ‘difficult’ may not be so difficult for non-native speakers. The ‘difficult’ words are often imported from Latin or Greek, and have been imported in many other languages as well. Whereas words that are perfectly ordinary for you may be very difficult for us, like the names for kitchen implements, foodstuffs, articles of clothing, and the like (what do you mean a pocketbook is a woman’s handbag? that one confused me so much, the first time I encountered it).