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What are some words you swear people use to try and sound smart? (kbin.melroy.org)

submitted 3 months ago by Nytefyre@kbin.melroy.org to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Mine is - Algorithm. Ever since people have learned some of the inner workings of how content is suggested to them, that became the new spammed word that easily got exhausted within the week of it being used.

Yeah, an algorithm does indeed pitch you things of what to watch or listen to. But there's more going on than that, but people all the time just stop at that word and expect everyone to suddenly understand it. Sadly, most people just buy it at face value.

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[–] fool@programming.dev 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think I disagree with a lot of the comments here. The "trying to sound smart" feeling only really occurs when there's a mismatch in decorum -- someone is trying to appear Higher and More Logical -- but that can happen with any word, especially adverbs.

Technically, your argument is fallacious.

"Technically" is a useless crutch word (techy!), and "fallacious" is hella overused outside of formal logic stuff, so here it's a mismatch in decorum. (What's the fallacy? Does the other just... disagree with you, or are you using a converse error like A implies B, therefore B implies A?)

Well, you don't always have to do that, per se, but you can irregardless.

A lot of crutch words are just innocent habits, too. masterspace@lemmy.ca mentioned something like that... though there are always people who up their jargon levels for no reason other than To Be More L33t. ~and_screw_irregardless~

On the other hand, some words commented here are needed. For example, if a reviewer calls Grossman's The Magicians "erudite", it fits perfectly -- the book

Tap for spoiler

uses a metaphor for an archetypal Harvard. In one word we sum up the cloistered, elite, difficult, rich, status-chasing-ness combined with sophistication the metaphor entails.

Continuing on that feeling of summed-up-in-one-word-ness -- what alternatives do we really have for "whataboutism" or the "algorithm" or "milquetoast"? Those words hit hard, they sum things up.

The algorithm is an alt-right pipeline, of course he'll have that phase.

Great, another video on the most milquetoast youtuber drama I've ever heard.

Those words are concise, they roll off the tongue and evoke feeling! Don't shorten words just to sound more colloquial when you have a choice that really fits! And likewise, equally -- don't be grandiloquent just for the sake of it.

Or else you'll face floccinaucinihilipilification :3

[–] Mesa@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago

Yep. Words are meant to be used. There's usually a pretty clear difference between clear and concise communication and being a thesaurus superstar.

Also, words are fun. There are people that just genuinely like learning about words and their origins.