Words That Make You [Sound] Intelligent

He was faced with a conundrum, when inundateded with clandestine debotchery. His juxtaposition was to capitulate and seek professional assiatance to avoid further plight.

 

wow. 'assiatance'. Never heard that one before...

 

smart ass... it was a typo...

 

For everyone reading this thread, ignore this advice and list of words if you're aspiring to be a copywriter.

One of the FIRST rules you learn is to make your copy so easy to read and understandable, a 5 year old could read it. Putting big, technical words in your copy just shows off your own ego, and does yourself, the copy and the client absolutely no favours.

Save the big sophisticated words for your own writings. Write simply, concisely and easily in your copy. Make it SO easy to read that even an idiot could read it and understand what you were talking about. Remember, you're trying to SELL products, not yourself.


Ben Palmer-Wilson
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Freelance Copywriter

 

What makes me intelligent is the way I write, talk and converse to people.

 

I agree with you in principle but what you've said negates what should be the absolute FIRST rule of copywriting - know your audience. Language choice should always be determined by the audience. You write your copy in their language.

If they have the intelligence equivalent to that of a 5 year old, then write that way. But, if they are PhD candidates in Physics, it's doubtful they will be intrigued by such simple words and might even find your pitch insulting.

 

@Charismatic Mannequin@YMC
An argument could be made for both of your points of view.Words used ought to reflect the demographic of the audience that you're targeting.Obviously a set type of vocabular rules cannot work for all.
We need to be flexable with what we type and evolve accordingly.In the wonderful world of writing nothing is written in stone.

 

That was positively brilliant. I truly look forward to more of the same. My admiration not only for the profound cerebral display,but also for the effort.

 

Absolutely agree with your statement. Such words should be used only if they are really appropriate.

 

I know! It's so great I've even used 'eeep' in scrabble

 

I sometimes use "big" words, but afterwards I'm wondering where a word like that came from. I consider myself fairly good with English, but when words like that come out it's bizarre! I'm certainly not arrogant using words like that and my friends (who would not talk to me if I was arrogant) just think I'm intelligent (oh, how little they know! haha!).

Anyhoo, the whole reason of replying to this thread is that it caught my interest about writing for an audience and whether you should use complex words or keep it simple. When I was at university, we learnt something called the Flesch-Kincaid readability test. It helps determine whether a document is going to be easily read and understood by the majority of people. It is recommended to ensure (in this test) to keep the score between 60-70. The formula can be found on wiki. There are calculators online too which make it easier to work out.

 

it's first time i hear those words. i prefer to use basic word so that the people will understand

 

As lovers of the written word, these words may not appear all that big to us. Personally, I don't find these words hifalutin at the least- if I use them I don't feel "smarter". When I want to show off - ONLY to my equally eccentric and esoteric friends - I tend to use words like "palimpsest", "sangfroid", and say "copacetic" instead of just plain 'okay'. Of course, this is just done in the spirit of fun. But going back, although these words may not appear too fancy to us, they do to some people. I spoke to a woman once and I told her there was a "lag in the computer", and she reacted with a confused "huh?", and I repeated myself, and she was still nonplussed. I was starting to feel some irritation when I realized without her telling me that she didn't understand what "lag" meant. So I just simply said, "the system's slow" and she got it. So to sum up what I just said, your choice of words is ultimately contingent on who your audience is.

 

I don't understand what all the fuss is about. The words posted are not so uncommon that the average person would hear them and be confused. That is just silly. The problem is that instead of challenging people to learn (a new word for heaven's sake...), we would rather coddle ignorance (and yes... I said coddle. Add that to your list of 'big words'). Would it really hurt a reader's feeling if there were a few words they did not understand? I would like to think that if someone is no longer reading your material, it is because they think it is bad. Not because of the former.

 

Context it's all about context. If you use a word regardless of how many syllables it may contain, make sure it fits the context of the sentence. If you do this the chances are the reader unless they are totally ignorant will have a good idea what your on about. For example ("The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous." shawshank redemption.)

Any one who's read/seen this book/film will no exactly what magnanimous means.
There is nothing wrong with using big words if used intelligently and sparingly. mollycoddling does not help anyone. we should all strive to improve otherwise whats the point in being here other than to churn out more human s**t machines incapable of eloquent speech or self-improvement.

@buried alive I always prononce often with a t as I learned to enunciate syllables properly at school.
Besides that's our language your happily using so don't moan.
leave that to us it's what were best at ta very much...