Sunday, March 13, 2022

Words that make you sound smarter or more pretentious

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Preply there is an article by Matt Zajechowski on March 9, 2022 titled Words that make you sound smarter, according to Americans. It reports results from a survey of 1,916 Americans done on October 14 and 15 of 2021. There are three Top Twenty lists: A] Which words make someone sound smarter? B] Which words do people use the most to seem smarter? and C] Which words most make someone sound pretentious?

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results from all three lists are collected above in a single table. Ten words you should consider using (listed on B] but not on C]) are: adept, adequate, amicable, anomaly, charisma, coincide, condone, contemplate, exacerbate, and impeccable. The other ten pretentious ones (listed on both B] and C]) are: aesthetic, ambiguous, articulate, audacious, bonafide, brevity, candor, capitalize, caveat, and concur. Why do all these words begin with a letter in the first half of the alphabet?

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five things that people feel about complex vocabulary are shown above via a bar chart. Nearly equal percentages were either annoyed (36%) or impressed (35%). An infographic in the article collects some other negatives from fancy talk. 54% have actively tried to end a conversation with someone who used unnecessarily complex vocabulary. 43% believe someone with a complex vocabulary is trying to sound smarter than they are, and 28% assume that someone with a complex vocabulary is insecure.  

 

A cartoon image was modified from this at Openclipart.

 


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