This so reminds me of Moscow’s Nick Gier
Using complex words to sound smart is stupid writes Andrew Bade, a PhD candidate at Ohio State, on Quillette.
He cites research by Daniel M. Oppenheimer, a Carnegie Mellon psychology professor, titled, Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.
In a survey, 86 percent of Stanford undergrads admitted changing words “in an academic essay to make the essay sound more valid or intelligent by using complicated language,” and nearly two-thirds used a thesaurus to impress readers.
Yet, in an experiment, readers rated writers of simple, clear texts as more intelligent.
Basically, if readers struggle to understand what they read, they blame the writer for being obscure.
Academics in humanities and social sciences may suffer from “physics envy,” writes Bade. “In order to prove their intelligence, to themselves and to others, they might be tempted to complicate simple ideas and use complex vocabulary to describe them.”
Nobody’s impressed.