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21
What are some words you swear people use to try and sound smart? (kbin.melroy.org)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Mine is - Algorithm. Ever since people have learned some of the inner workings of how content is suggested to them, that became the new spammed word that easily got exhausted within the week of it being used.

Yeah, an algorithm does indeed pitch you things of what to watch or listen to. But there's more going on than that, but people all the time just stop at that word and expect everyone to suddenly understand it. Sadly, most people just buy it at face value.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Maybe a slight tangent, but it drives me insane when I see/hear people do the following in scripted or written content.

The normal, very casual sentence structure could be "Chocolate cake, which I am quite partial to..." but they will flip it around, which is usually fine, but they do it in a way that doesn't make sense with the words used. They'll do something like "Chocolate cake, of which I am quite partial to". (Where the correct rearrangement would be "to which I am quite partial")

I know its nitpicky because I can still perfectly understand their meaning, but it feels like people do it because they want to sound smarter. And that's fine! I just wish they'd go that tiny step further and learn how to properly use that method of sentence rearrangement! Drives me nuts.

That is all.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think I disagree with a lot of the comments here. The "trying to sound smart" feeling only really occurs when there's a mismatch in decorum -- someone is trying to appear Higher and More Logical -- but that can happen with any word, especially adverbs.

Technically, your argument is fallacious.

"Technically" is a useless crutch word (techy!), and "fallacious" is hella overused outside of formal logic stuff, so here it's a mismatch in decorum. (What's the fallacy? Does the other just... disagree with you, or are you using a converse error like A implies B, therefore B implies A?)

Well, you don't always have to do that, per se, but you can irregardless.

A lot of crutch words are just innocent habits, too. [email protected] mentioned something like that... though there are always people who up their jargon levels for no reason other than To Be More L33t. ~and_screw_irregardless~

On the other hand, some words commented here are needed. For example, if a reviewer calls Grossman's The Magicians "erudite", it fits perfectly -- the book

Tap for spoileruses a metaphor for an archetypal Harvard. In one word we sum up the cloistered, elite, difficult, rich, status-chasing-ness combined with sophistication the metaphor entails.

Continuing on that feeling of summed-up-in-one-word-ness -- what alternatives do we really have for "whataboutism" or the "algorithm" or "milquetoast"? Those words hit hard, they sum things up.

The algorithm is an alt-right pipeline, of course he'll have that phase.

Great, another video on the most milquetoast youtuber drama I've ever heard.

Those words are concise, they roll off the tongue and evoke feeling! Don't shorten words just to sound more colloquial when you have a choice that really fits! And likewise, equally -- don't be grandiloquent just for the sake of it.

Or else you'll face floccinaucinihilipilification :3

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Yep. Words are meant to be used. There's usually a pretty clear difference between clear and concise communication and being a thesaurus superstar.

Also, words are fun. There are people that just genuinely like learning about words and their origins.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

β€œdebunked”

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

"woke"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Perchance

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

You can't just say "perchance"!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Irregardless.. not a word.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

bourgeoisie

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Milquetoast, vice versa, vice-sa versa (sic), erudite, illucidate, confusing size for importance (saying big meeting instead of important meeting), commensurate, je no se qua, anything in Latin, anything in another language, latent space, probability space. We use lots of techniques to try to punch-up our perceived intelligence, neurotypical people do it sometimes because they have a tendancy to associate station in a hierarchy with "good traits" like intelligence and use these smart sounding words to try to project authority... ? Maybe? Sometimes I use smart sounding words to talk over/around people when I don't want to engage them for whatever reason. People after weird. I think it's easy to see when people are dumber than you, and much harder to see when people are smarter that you; especially the degree to which (to which, being another smart sounding word particle. Particle when used to ike this, another smartness showing phrase.) they are smarter than you. My rule of thumb is that if someone's dumb, that's easy for you to tell, but if you can't tell that they are blatantly dumb, they are likely to be at least close to you in intelligence. If they seem smart, they are likely smarter than your best case scenario guess (they are likely smarter than you think). Everything goes out the window when you start talking about people who learned English as not their first language. Also acronyms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Interesting that you list vice versa. What do you typically use instead?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

If I needed to say something in a two item list and wanted to say that the list could work either way, I would say something like,"meat and potatoes or potatoes and meat, either way" so I would be restating the list in the opposite order. But I also use the words vice versa. I just noticed that people say it when they want to sound smart. It's not like it's only said in order to sound smart. There are lots of phrases that are short, succinct, and have a very specific situation where they are applicable. These are the phrases that people have a tendency to use to punch up their sentences.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

minutiae

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

milquetoast

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

This one amuses me. It looks all fancy in writing. But if someone says "milk toast" and you don't know what it means, they just sound like an idiot.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Anodyne.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I think that's the name of a videogame

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Digress/Digressed

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

A lot of examples people here are giving, are types of doublespeak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP07oyFTRXc

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

"Whataboutism" (a term for that already existed; it's called "getting called on your hypocritical bullshit"), "disinformation" (this term is literally just the BlueAnon answer to the MAGAt's "fake news"), jesus christ "fallacy" especially (Merely calling out a fallacy like you're an NFL ref at the Super Bowl is the same kind of sophistry as the fallacy you address if you're not gonna spend the time to dismantle it).

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

When people use industry specific jargon and acronyms with someone not in their industry.

It is a very simple rule of writing and communication. You never just use an acronym out of nowhere, you write it out in full the first time and explain the acronym, and then after that you can use it.

Artificial diamonds can be made with a High Temperature, High Pressure (HTHP) process, or a ...

Doctors, military folk, lawyers, and technical people of all variety are often awful at just throwing out an acronym or technical term that you literally have no way of knowing.

Usually though, I don't think it's a conscious effort to sound smart. Sometimes, it's just people who are used to talking only with their coworkers / inner circle and just aren't thinking about the fact that you don't have the same context, sometimes it's people who are feeling nervous / insecure and are subconsciously using fancy terms to sound like they fit in, and sometimes it's people using specific terminology to hide the fact that they don't actually understand the concepts well enough to break them down further.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

I do this alot but I alway follow up with "Do you know what blah is?" and depending on age/experience/acronym or term I ask them to explain it.

Sometimes I get assigned work with a senior engineer(where I learn) and sometimes I get asked to help a new person. For example right now I'm in a project being driven by a senior engineer but was asked to assist a professional development program employee(or pdp) to actually execute the project. As a result this is the habit I developed to 1. Make sure I don't confuse people with random acronyms or terms 2. Ensure we are on the same regarding definition(and they are not just saying yes I know when they don't).

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

Krusty: So he's proactive, huh?

Network Executive Lady: Oh, God, yes. We're talking about a totally outrageous paradigm.

Writer: Excuse me, but "proactive" and "paradigm"? Aren't these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I'm accusing you of anything like that... [pause] ...I'm fired, aren't I?

Roger Meyers, Jr.: Oh, yes. [gets up to leave] The rest of you writers start thinking up a name for this funky dog - I don't know, something along the lines of, say, "Poochie", only more proactive!

Krusty: Yeah!

β€” The Simpsons S08E14 "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago

Corporate-speak especially on linkedin from the types of users who use it as an influencer platform. β€œSynergy” for example.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Per se. Vis a vis. Erudite. Juxtaposition. Elucidate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh shit, I picked up "per se" from Animal Crossing as a kid and never questioned it.

In my defense, Rover is a fucking weirdo, you'd never use a phrase you learned from him to try to sound smart.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

(Most of these are pretty normal words to use and you shouldn't make a conscious effort to avoid them because some guy on the internet thinks you're pretentious.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Lol fair. I got insecure for a second because I used to get mistaken for a snob when I was actually just terrible at wording things.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

For each of these, what would you use instead?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'll take a crack at this one. For what it's worth, I think the first couple are just loanwords from another language which sometimes gets used incorrectly, and the last three are uncommon words in conversation. Know your audience.

"This isn't a meeting about the budget per se"

"This isn't exactly a meeting about the budget"

"The victim met their demise vis a vis poodle attack"

"The victim met their demise by way of poodle attack."

"Steve's a real erudite."

"Steve's a real reader."

"Tom and Jerry is a fun cartoon because of the juxtaposition of the relationship between cat and mouse."

"Tom and Jerry is a fun cartoon because of the oppositeness of the relationship between cat and mouse"

"I don't understand, can you elucidate on that?"

"I don't understand, can you explain?"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

"This isn't a meeting about the budget per se"

"This isn't exactly a meeting about the budget"

If you finish those sentences, it becomes clear why per se is used:

"This isn't a meeting about the budget per se, it's a meeting about how much of the budget is spent on bits of string"

"This isn't exactly a meeting about the budget, it's a meeting about how much of the budget is spent on bits of string"

In this situation, using per se provides a more natural sentence flow because it links the first part of the sentence with the second. It's also shorter and fewer syllables.

"Steve's quite erudite."

"Steve's quite intellectual."

I think intellectual might be a closer synonym, but intellectual often has more know-it-all connotations than erudite which seems to often refer to a more pure and cerebral quality.

"Tom and Jerry is a fun cartoon because of the juxtaposition of the relationship between cat and mouse."

"Tom and Jerry is a fun cartoon because of the side by side oppositeness of the relationship between cat and mouse that is displayed"

For those to say precisely the same thing it would have to be more like the above which doesn't really roll off the tongue.

"I don't understand, can you elucidate that?"

"I don't understand, can you explain?"

Elucidate just means to make something clear in general, explaining something usually inherently implies a linguistic, verbal, explanation, unless otherwise stated.

Honestly, these all seem like very reasonable words to me for the most part. I can understand not using them in some contexts, but for the most part, words exist for a reason, to describe something slightly differently, and it takes forever to talk and communicate if we only limit ourselves to the most basic unnuanced terms.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Vis a vis is used in an uncommon way here. It typically means "in relation to", "compared with" or "regarding"

"The poodle needs more grooming vis a vis most other breeds of dog"

"The poodle needs more grooming compared to most other breeds of dog"

The use of erudite is slightly wrong. It's an adjective meaning knowledgeable, but you used it like a noun.

"Steve is really erudite"

"Steve is really well-read"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I genuinely thought erudite was a noun. Thanks, TIL

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Happy to help! I love uncommon words and love to see them used correctly

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Right now, "demure".

My boss, specifically: "stonefruit".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

I've never seen anyone use "demure" in a serious context. It seems to always be used to convey a mocking tone.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Alright, I'll bite: what exactly is a "stonefruit" in this context? Google just says "fruits with large seeds that are basically rocks in the middle", which I suspect is not the pseudo-intellectual flex your boss is going for?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

No, that's it. But it's every single wine she tastes. They don't all have stonefruit notes!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Lol. Grapes. Wine smells like grapes.

It is a great experience to have someone explain to you what you should smell, taste, etc. when you are drinking a wine varietal, but apart from that everything else is just fluff & marketing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I work in the grape wine industry but at home I make fruit wines. I always crack up when someone says this grape wine tastes like cherries or blueberry.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

That's the fun thing about food (and wine especially). You don't need to have the ingredient present for it to taste like that ingredient. I made chocolate chip cookies once that tasted like bananas, and I most definitely didn't add bananas to them.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Peach, plum, cherry, apricot, pluot.... and it goes on extensively. There are lots of different stonefruits out there all with very different flavors.

Tangentially related there's an artist that has been trying to make a tree with the most diverse number of storefruit producing branches grafted onto it.

A Tree Grows 40 Different Types of Fruit

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Sure, but she just says "stonefruits", not any specific one. shrug

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I think the common goal is not to sound smart, but add variety and diversity to the language, so it doesn't sound so boring.

example https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken

This gets really boring and repetitive

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Milieu

Pastiche

That's all I can remember now, I gotta ambulate my way over to the kitchen and make some coffee.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

Ambulate is a great one to use when your dog has already learned "walk" and is learning "hike".

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do you percolate your coffee?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No I use la Press Français

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

How cosmopolitan!