GO ON; admit it: You sometimes use big words to impress readers, don’t you?
I certainly have — especially when writing university assignments years ago.
But research from USA’s Princeton University shows that readers are anything but impressed — they think you’re trying to hide something. AND they judge you as less intelligent. Harrumph!
(The research paper‘s title is apt: ‘Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.’)
But isn’t a rich vocabulary associated with intelligence? Yes. It is. But just as you could use 1000 fonts and colours in your next email, but should only use one or two, so you’re better off simplifying your language.
- ‘High-quality learning environments are a necessary precondition for facilitation and enhancement of the ongoing learning process.’
- ‘Children need good schools if they are to learn properly.’
Practical AI application for these principles
Here’s the twist for 2026: your reader is often a machine first. AI assistants now summarise your emails, papers and proposals before a human sees them. If a model can’t extract your point, neither can a busy exec. Simple, direct sentences get quoted; erudite vernacular gets skipped.
Three moves:
- Tell your AI the reading level. Left alone, it reaches for ‘leverage’, ‘utilise’ and ‘delve’. Prompt for grade 7 and one idea per sentence, and it’ll write plainer than most humans.
- Use it as a simplicity editor. Paste your draft and ask: ‘Cut redundancy, kill the passive voice, un-nominalise the verbs.’ Thirty seconds, instant RAZOR pass.
- Keep the thinking human. AI can smooth your prose, but only you know the big news. Lead with it – then let the machine trim the fat.
Simple wins. Now more than ever.
7 thoughts on “Research proves it: Big words make you look dumb”
Hi Paul
I acknowledge as factual that the central thesis to be found within the body of the primary editorial commentary from your latest electronic periodical contains a distinction of significant consequence.
Or perhaps I should just say:
You make a good point!
Ha! Love it, Peter-John. Thanks.
Sorry, I mean that I abundantly appreciate the manner in which you elucidated your jocular annotation!
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Hi Paul
Thank you for the link to the Princeton research. Had heard about it but couldn’t find it (despite emailing the university) and was beginning to think it didn’t exist. Now I can cite it with confidence.
Kind regards
Huw
PS: If our local education authority had written example 1, they would almost certainly have used the word ‘pedagogical’. 😉
One’s thinking faculty waxes nostalgic, reminiscing on exaggerated fountains of verbosity in days of yore.. “How dare you presume to have the presumption to prognosticate against a man of my abilities, when your intellect is not sufficiently expanded to realise such bombastic phraseologies, striving at obligate delusions”