It’s not particularly useful to have a big vocabulary—it’s actually often counterproductive for getting your point understood. That said, it’s sometimes useful to substitute words to prevent using a single word for multiple distinct meanings.
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 not useful if other people don’t understand it. If you’re communicating with other experts, it’s very useful.
Med students for example have to learn thousands of new words to practice as doctors and without this communication would get ridiculously long-winded.
I agree that sometimes using unusual, uncommon or long words when a shorter one will do can be counterproductive, but what about topic-specific vocabulary—words which are common in given circles (for example LW) but have complex ideas or meanings behind them? Or would you consider that to fall under your latter sentence?
Topic-specific vocabulary and technical jargon has to get finessed to be used properly. In a perfect world, you can use such words in a way that the context makes their meaning clear. Or, at the very least, gives an obvious way to research what the word means. Acronyms and abbreviations are an excellent anti-example for this—I’d never use an abbreviation unless it’s absolutely necessary, and use the full phrase nearby before it. Garbage-in garbage-out is a useful way to talk about algorithms failing by seeding them with bad input, but randomly dropping GIGO in a conversation is a quick way to lose someone.
Jargon and inferential distance are closely related, and you need to keep track of both together. People who are already thinking much like you are likely using the same words for the same concepts, and vice versa.
Also, even if you can talk specifically in technical contexts, learning to ease people into jargon and introduce lay members to engineering disciplines is a tremendously valuable skill to learn. As in a 4-year engineering degree and this skill is a quick way to get promoted to whatever position is in between management-types and engineering-types. It’s really straightforward—just have enough technical chops to not completely embarrass yourself in a technical context, and learn how to explain engineering like your audience has an MBA, and management is going to want to talk to you about engineering projects rather than other people.
tl;dr—go ahead and use technical words in technical contexts, but try to do so in a way that those unfamiliar with the context can at least figure out what questions they need to ask.
It’s not particularly useful to have a big vocabulary—it’s actually often counterproductive for getting your point understood. That said, it’s sometimes useful to substitute words to prevent using a single word for multiple distinct meanings.
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).
It’s not useful if other people don’t understand it. If you’re communicating with other experts, it’s very useful.
Med students for example have to learn thousands of new words to practice as doctors and without this communication would get ridiculously long-winded.
I agree that sometimes using unusual, uncommon or long words when a shorter one will do can be counterproductive, but what about topic-specific vocabulary—words which are common in given circles (for example LW) but have complex ideas or meanings behind them? Or would you consider that to fall under your latter sentence?
Topic-specific vocabulary and technical jargon has to get finessed to be used properly. In a perfect world, you can use such words in a way that the context makes their meaning clear. Or, at the very least, gives an obvious way to research what the word means. Acronyms and abbreviations are an excellent anti-example for this—I’d never use an abbreviation unless it’s absolutely necessary, and use the full phrase nearby before it. Garbage-in garbage-out is a useful way to talk about algorithms failing by seeding them with bad input, but randomly dropping GIGO in a conversation is a quick way to lose someone.
Jargon and inferential distance are closely related, and you need to keep track of both together. People who are already thinking much like you are likely using the same words for the same concepts, and vice versa.
Also, even if you can talk specifically in technical contexts, learning to ease people into jargon and introduce lay members to engineering disciplines is a tremendously valuable skill to learn. As in a 4-year engineering degree and this skill is a quick way to get promoted to whatever position is in between management-types and engineering-types. It’s really straightforward—just have enough technical chops to not completely embarrass yourself in a technical context, and learn how to explain engineering like your audience has an MBA, and management is going to want to talk to you about engineering projects rather than other people.
tl;dr—go ahead and use technical words in technical contexts, but try to do so in a way that those unfamiliar with the context can at least figure out what questions they need to ask.