“Don’t use academic language” I’m not an academic. Academic prose is nothing like what I write. This anti-intellectual insistence on oversimplifying everything is what makes everything seem shallow. People long for a “real” that’s been trivialized away from our lives by everything being superficial.
Comments
Write technical/scientific/academic prose using t/s/a language and you're talking down to your audience.
Write t/s/a prose using a reduced lexicon to facilitate understanding by an audience which is unfamiliar with the field and you risk oversimplifying and "dumbing it down".
Most important lesson I learned in public speaking class
But then I remember I like how the word "nebulous" sounds and I'm going to use it cos its fun and it makes me happy :D
One of the operators laughed at it and said 'ooh that's a fancy word, can't you just say straight?'
It is frustrating.
I don't want some rando with no expertise a president.
There are nearly half a million words in English. Most people use only a couple thousand of them. Worse, they use words that are so generic that they've lost meaning completely.
The result is meaningless communication with no distinction or prose.
'Anti-intellectual' carries a connotation that is, ironically, lost in this thread.
George Orwell expanded on this phenomena. He called it "Newspeak". If you haven't, read "1984". It feels more and more relevant every year.
Academia is the gate protecting the machine.
Had so many chats where I or someone I'm talking to just isn't familiar with the specific name being used for a concept, even when the concept itself is understood.
They may also be using a word in a niche or outside common usage form, or it may be something with a lot of ambiguity by context.
https://xkcd.com/1053/
(Looking at you, Texas lawyers.)
I say this as someone who used to regularly talk in public for a living, so consider that.
So, yeah, who needs books and stuff?
Why, oh why, do those in power seek to dumb down the masses? Tis but a mystery...
I also know that 5th grade reading levels and illiteracy rates equal to or greater than 50% of the US population makes communicating with the masses difficult without use of pictures or colorful print posters.
Me: "So, the tariffs are really taxes & Trump is hoping leaders will capitulate and kiss his ring instead of retaliating."
Them: "Man, speak English."
Me: "Man: LEARN English."