Deaf Philosophy Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
This “guy” misses the point. I think he just wanted to boost his own self-esteem and ego by telling the world that there are people who think he uses fancy words.
My experience and approach is completely different. If someone said they don’t understand the word/idea I just used, it means that *I* failed to communicate effectively. What I do is change the word and idea around to help the person understand what I mean. Many times I don’t understand people and that includes people of all levels of intelligence and even non-english users.
Even people with a Ph.D degree have a hard time understanding my writing and I did not use any “fancy” words. I’m in philosophy, I don’t go for fluff in my writing, I just get to the point. If people want to do flowery crap in their writing, that’s fine but those people will lose their audience and message easily. I wrote a heavy metaphysical paper for my anthropology class and I was asked to use less metaphysics even though ALL the words I used were pretty straightforward.
A language is used to convey your “message” effectively, what would be the point of speaking latin to only english users and then tell those people to look it up in a latin dictionary? I applaud those people who always ask people what they mean and what they are trying to say regardless of worrying about looking stupid. There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers and the guy gave a stupid answer, even a dictionary won’t help anyone understand what you are trying to say clearly.
This happens all the time in philosophy, a room full of philosophy professors will still ask each other what they mean, what they are trying to clarify and so forth.. so we have this problem on all levels anyways.
Source: 'How Insulting!' - Der Sankt Speaks
As some of you may have noticed, I filled in simple definitions after each word that some would consider being a 'big word'. Now you may get the idea what 'Deaf Philosophy' is talking about. A message needs to be conveyed effective. It doesn't mean you have to dumb down your writing like many people are trying to claim to be the case. You can make your point come across with a stronger impact if you want to reach a larger audience; you have to change the word and the idea around as 'Deaf Philosophy' said in order to communicate. What I'm saying is that I don't dumb down my writing; I just change the word and the idea around to convey the message effectively. I don't see the point in using words that many people aren't familiar with and weaken the impact of the message. It does make a difference; at least it does for me.
To re-quote 'Deaf Philosophy'...
If people want to do flowery crap in their writing, that’s fine but those people will lose their audience and message easily.
In a sense, it's not far from the truth. People will know when it's being done on purpose. Pretentiousness (attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture than is actually possessed) isn't something you can easily conceal (hide).
It's a never-ending cycle; there will always be people like that. They come and go.
Feel free to express yourself. If you have any questions to ask me, you can do it here or just e-mail me. I'm looking forward to reading some of your thoughts on the subject.
Have a good day.
Well-written blog. Writing is a challenge, making sure that no one would be offended. There will always be a few people, with problems of their own, who would react negatively, like one recently on my v/blogger.
ReplyDeleteI like your approach, taking the readers into consideration and making sure that we get your message loud and clear without mudding the meaning of the message. Not an easy task. ;-)
Great post, Banjo. Respect for the readers is the key.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that the style of the writer is natural without the intention of being pretentious. Often this attracts a smaller audience, which may not be an issue for the writer. He/she may want to appeal to a specific audience.
However, one can detect an attitude whether the style of the writing is flowery or straightforward. Readers are sensitive to patronizing or condescending tones expressed in the posts, showing a pattern.
It can be tough -- Mishkazena pointed out one problem which is when the writer herself genuinely doesn't consider the words she's using to be "too pretentious."
ReplyDeleteHowever, if someone takes issue with what I've written, or misunderstands me, I do consider that my fault for failing to clearly convey what I meant.
On the other hand, I'm an oddball ;-). I'm thrilled when I come across a word I don't know...
Banjo, I'm honored you wrote a post about my post which was in reply to a post about another post.....
ReplyDeleteI probably could go on forever about "communication" issues.
In the Deaf blogosphere, I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone criticize people's grammar or spelling. As bad as a person's english or spelling is, I can still understand them clearly because they know how to communicate.
It's ironic that sometimes people with perfect english skills cannot communicate effectively. Sometimes I even have to look up simple words and find that 5th or 6th meaning to see how the word used fits with the sentence/concept. This happened to me last week but I forgot what the word was! I just remember making a gripe that a different word could have been used instead.
There's about 100,000 words in the english language and the best might only know 50,000 words. I think the average person knows up to 15-20k words.
We have to consider the tone like Miskazena stated. However, I think it should be a requirement that ALL people can communicate with children. If a person that one might consider pretentious is stuck on that level of communication, then how can that person speak with all kinds of people?
To throw everything in a loop, perhaps some people just want to be reviled and push people away, and communication is another tool at doing that. Not everyone wants to be a "positive" communicator and sometimes do so in a very self-serving manner to create a controversy and have people talk about that person more often.
Once again, thank you for the props.
What Mishkazena and Beg is true about the writers using words that may give the readers the wrong impression. Though I don't believe this happen often because of the tone used in general. I like learning new words all of the times too. Life would be dull if we were learning nothing new. :-)
ReplyDeleteThough I do agree with Mishkazena on how the readers can be sensitive to some tones. This is what I'm really referring to and the readers can sense it. In general, they wouldn't complain about the words used, they would ask what they meant instead.
I think it's safe to assume that people who aren't pretentious don't often face accusations because they are a natural at it. I'm always reading articles and blog entries that are heavily loaded with metaphors and an enriched vocabulary.
When a tone is used, the readers will react differently; which may make a negative impact on the blog. An insolent tone shouldn’t be too difficult to detect for many. In general, people know when someone is being rude. It’s never a good idea to publicly humiliate people for asking questions.
There’s no stupid questions, just stupid answers.
Deaf Philosophy, I just felt that particular post of yours was worthy of a blog entry. :-)
ReplyDeleteYes the Deaf Philosophy summarized it very well.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school, some deaf kids would try to pick out many fancy words to put in their article. Often times, their article did not really make any sense or too overwhelming for the teacher to read.
I also consider it an insult when a writer tells people to look it up a word in the dictionary when they come across a word that the writer uses. You will lose your effectiveness and the friendliness of a blog. People no longer feel welcome to your blog when you say things like that. It is your responsibility to make your blog readable and enjoyable without having to put people in a limbo and checking in the dictionary every second to see what your word means. People should have a choice if they want to look up a word in the dictionary but should not have to be told to do that. It makes people feel like they are dummies and the blogger extremely intelligent! Not good!!!
I do find it interesting that there's very little criticizing of anyone's grammar or spelling in these parts, but I think we all understand that for many of us English is a second language.
ReplyDeleteI see it in the hearing world: a native speaker who can't spell worth beans will be ripped apart, but a nonnative will be given a pass.
I knew I forgot to add something. When someone doesn't understand a word and "accuses" people of using fancy word, the underlying message is that this person does not get what you are trying to communicate.
ReplyDeleteSuppose you get into an argument and someone says you are being a jerk, the real message is that you did something that offended/hurt the person, regardless of your intent. I don't think many people can get the underlying message in communication regardless of what the actual question/phrase was used.
I've seen too many papers where a thesaurus was used excessively and actually did it once. That was way too much work just to try to soup up your paper. In basketball, you go for a simple lay-up or dunk during a game, but you don't try to get fancy and bring out a chair and 3 people in front of you to make a 360 dunk during the game.
As for tone... the tone was already set in the first sentence or whenever it was stated. "Deaf people accuse me of using fancy words." It doesn't take much to see where the tone is toward Deaf people. Why didn't the author simply say "people" without labels.
I don't know if the guy is "up to date" but much of USA has a problem with education/english and I am explicit in saying that this is a problem that hearing people face.
There's the internet talk lingo (lol, brb, ttyl etc) as well as the txt message lingo that would drive an english professor crazy but the great thing is, all are communicating effectively.
There is another view to all this... Many times a writer will use fancy words to try and make themselves look smarter. All they do is make it complicated and turn what could have been pleasurable reading into something you have to work at to understand. If I have to work at trying to understand something, I lose interest-- that is something you do in school. Reading something and learning the vocabulary and spelling and all that goes with it, is not something I want to do in everyday reading. So keep in mind that if a reader has to struggle to understand your writing, you have probably seen the last of that particular reader. If you only want to have a specific type of audience, then be my guest and use your fancy-schmancy words.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, this post reminded me of the classic Shakespeare technique of saying things twice -- once with big words that are fun to use, and once plainly. Like when Macbeth looks at his bloody hands and says that "they will the multitudinous seas incarnadine!" and then adds, "Making the green one red."
ReplyDeleteYou want to have fun using the flowery words, but when push comes to shove, you want your audience to understand you, and if you're good you can manage both.
'Nothing new. I still think that it is polite and shows compassion to write simply and use words that I feel EVERYONE will understand. Intelligence varies you know, and in the deaf world there are many who are not able to read "fancy" writing. Why try to "impress"? If you have something to say, say it. Do not punish all of us for your insecurities.
ReplyDeletePersonally I feel disgusted when I read a deaf blog that is not written plainly -- for EVERYONE to read (and enjoy)and I do not return to that blog again. These fancy dancies are not fooling anyone, only themselves.
'Explaining what words mean is a put down. I throughly dislike it. It is rude and uncalled for. We all have a dictionary.
Lantana, Lantana's Latitude
Çome to think of it, many newspapers attempt to keep the reading ability at the 6th grade level or so to make it accessible to more people. Newspapers like the Washington Post have a higher reading level. So guess it depends on how much one wants to make their blog readable to everybody.
ReplyDelete