There’s a common judgment about people who use words that are atypical to everyday language. The assertion is that people who use “big” words are trying to sound smart.

The marketing world teaches that we need to write at a third-grade level so that people can easily understand the message. And, as we all know, the news is reported to the comprehension level of a sixth grader.

I have a very different perspective.

First, let’s talk about you, the audience.

Regardless of your reading level, you are my fellow human. We all come equipped with the same potential; I genuinely believe this. We just all have different muscles of strength based on our interests, that’s all. To “write down” so an audience can easily comprehend is insulting.

I see a built-in hypocrisy in the camp of “dumbing down” messages. The very group that asserts a writer using “big words” is trying to look smart is the group that simplifies their writing to accommodate the audience they believe is of lesser intelligence than them. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? This entire camp of thinking is choc-full of judgment.

Next, let’s address the trying to look smart notion.

I love words. The more of them I know and have immediate access to, the better I can understand the things I’m experiencing. Sometimes, happiness is contentment. Other times, exuberance. And on a perfect day, it’s ecstasy. As a person who feels deeply and experiences the subtleties and nuances of life with eyes wide open, I need words to express myself adequately. 

Just beyond my love of words is my love of composition. I was riveted by diagramming sentences in middle school – understanding the proper breakdown of sentences was as artistic as learning the patterns in dance, music, or a work of art. Sometimes, it felt like a puzzle.

My vocabulary is the equivalent of a painter’s trolley full of ten shades of blue, twelve shades of yellow, or eight shades of red. The more creative options I have in my toolbox, the more creatively I can express.

My body feels the cadence as I’m writing, and sometimes, I pause to allow just the right word to come up for use from my library. I can feel when a three-syllable word would fit the tempo better than only one syllable, and other times, the slight shift in connotation compels me to use a word that some might find to be more obscure rather than a more common one.

At that moment, I’m thinking neither of the audience nor myself, but rather, the thought begging to be given form. My highest honor is to serve that expression.

I may eventually change my mind, but right now, I believe that when writing using these perspectives, the message reaches whoever is ready for it. The reader may understand all the words or none, but they can feel and understand the message because the writer was free of any preconceptions about their competency.

One last note about characterizations of words: our incredible English language is a work of art itself. Any suggestion that “big” words are pretentious seems insane to me. Would we go to the Redwood Forest in Northern California and assert that those trees are trying to ‘out tree’ the others just because they’re 100 yards wide and taller than the eye can see an endpoint? When did we begin to demonize parts of our beautiful language?

We accuse people who use “big” words as trying to be clever and characterize them as a ‘wordsmith.’  And this is bad, why?

When an artisan of any kind – be it a clothier, blacksmith, shoemaker, or jewelry maker behaves cleverly in their art, we revere them. We celebrate their innovation. Crafting collections of sentences is indeed wordsmithing – a craft worth honoring.

I submit that if we stop talking to people as if they’re a third grader in our written and vocal communications, they’ll rise to their true nature, whatever that may be. And in that true nature, any distortion of either trying to look smart or believing someone is trying to look smart will dissipate. Resonance will interpret the meaning of messages, and curiosity may lead them to want to learn the word they didn’t understand.

This is my reality of expression. Come one, come all. Welcome in. I honor you in all of your unique capacity.