Parametric overview of symptomatic usage of scientific verbiage

More simply speaking using big words to explain big Concepts. This thread is for the purpose of discussing scientific verbiage which precludes large-scale understanding of particular scientific discussions that are outside of the verbal understanding range of most people. In other words, like I said using big words. I do a lot of reading so I find it kind of funny that people tell me when I speak to them about a subject, can you explain this to me without the big words? Of course, to those in the scientific disciplines, big words are used to express subjects which basically are difficult to relay without being strictly mathematics in their form. For this reason science teachers and speakers often use these big words because they are the simplification of scientific dialogue which is primarily mathematical to an expression that can be conveyed in a strictly verbal form. This is what constitutes big speak for large word values given to scientific discussion. Of course, there is a whole slew of things which I can immediately characterize in the vernacular of scientific reasoning which are mathematical generalizations converted to linguistic form. I just thought this would be an interesting discussion because we can use big words without concern and at the same time draw attention to the fact that these big words as it were are being used to define subjects which are largely mathematical and practically impossible to explain with a diction which is non-scientific or not mathematical and thus it is difficult to convey these ideas to the masses or those who don't frequent strictly in verbal constructs of theorem and components of mathematics specifically. So break out your big words and let's discuss them in this thread.

I read somewhere that most people have a vocabulary of a 6th grader. When big words are used appropriately it's ok. but in many cases it's just people trying to sound smarter than they are, an ego thing. Good luck with this thread, there are a few intellectuals here that actually know what they're talking about. Literally.

a reply to: HalWesten

I have already had a pretty good laugh just constructing the OP so I had fun just thinking of how to express my thoughts enough to come up with this line of discussion. If it makes it to a fairly light discussion of the concept I am amused even further. Like many people who are thinkers, I do not place any value on my ideas. I place more value on the discussion of those ideas.

originally posted by: machineintelligence
a reply to: HalWesten

I have already had a pretty good laugh just constructing the OP so I had fun just thinking of how to express my thoughts enough to come up with this line of discussion. If it makes it to a fairly light discussion of the concept I am amused even further. Like many people who are thinkers, I do not place any value on my ideas. I place more value on the discussion of those ideas.

If anyone here's ever read Harlan Ellison s work you know that he used words so long that sometimes they ran so long that they left the page and began again three pages later. Long words are fantastic especially when you really do understand them (however briefly) and they add to what you are reading. Great Idea for a thread ! Unlike myself he could type perfectly with two fingers and almost never made a spelling error.

a reply to: bluemooone2

Harlan Ellison, I had not heard of him. Now I have. Very interesting character and seems very well spoken.

a reply to: machineintelligence

In order to have a discourse on oversized vocabulary it would seem that a more narrow definition is in order. A plethora of the terms seemingly aggregated under the umbrella of 'big words' tend to have no more characters than other common words. The dilemma as it appears to me, is not so much the girth of the word, but its frequency in common usage vs specialized areas that tend to give words an impression of complication that causes the average individual to become frustrated with their lack of comprehension and accuse the speakers of using 'big words'

originally posted by: machineintelligence
a reply to: bluemooone2

Harlan Ellison, I had not heard of him. Now I have. Very interesting character and seems very well spoken.

You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.

Pretty much sums up Ellison

a reply to: machineintelligence

Damn, you are SMART! I think you are the smartest person I know, judging by the giant words you use, anyway. I wish I could sound as intelligent as you do. Everyone agrees that you are probably the smartest person we know.






That’s what you were after, is it not?

Evolution is the shedding of redundant traits. At least that’s how I rationalize having a limited vocabulary.

a reply to: machineintelligence
The medical profession is bad for that, they can take the most ordinary things and use an entirely different language to describe them. My favorite example is at 1:33 in this scene where the "doctor" says "This woman has immediate postprandial upper-abdominal distention!" The guards let them pass and then he's asked "what did you say she's got?"

"Cramps" is the reply, LOL.

Star Trek IV The Voyage Home - Hospital Scene


I'm surprised you'd make a thread about this without giving an example though.

One of the issues I see is that in technology it's not always the case that the words are big so much as they don't necessarily mean the same thing as they do to a layperson. One example that comes up a lot is the word "theory". People will post something like "I came up with a theory that if you draw the numbers 1, 2, and 3 in a triangle shape it explains atomic structure". A scientist might ask what experiments or observations have confirmed the explanatory power of that, since to a scientist, a "theory" means "a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation"

The person says there are no experiments, it's just an idea that popped into their head, a "theory".

The scientist could then reply that is not what scientists call a theory, they call that a brain fart.

It gives every indication that what you have espoused is that the use of specific scientific jargon can confuse the common masses. But any jargon that goes over the heads of any audience is obviously a ploy.

"if you can't impress them with brilliance, then baffle them with BS."

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

"if you can't impress them with brilliance, then baffle them with BS."

That's the First Rule of Engineering.

It really depends on who your audience is. Most engineers, doctors, and scientists are just trying to impress, so they imagine that every audience is a peer. That makes them sound "smart" to their own ears. In reality, they have just made a lot of noise without transferring any information.

One of my post-grad professors loved to do that. He actually told us in class that we were supposed to make sure no one in the room knew what we were talking about so we would sound "smart." He was a very smart men, but on that one point I didn't listen to him. I consider speech to be all about exchanging information. If no one can understand me, then I shouldn't be talking.

If I am collaborating with another engineer or a scientist, I'll use the big words. It's expected, and I know they (should) know what I am talking about. But otherwise? Nope. Redneck talk simple. Make sense. Make people happy. Read my posts in detail; when I am talking with someone who claims to know a subject, my word choice changes. The big words are more precise and communicate more information when they don't confuse the listener, but when they do confuse the listener they are just an exercise in showmanship.

Medical is ridiculous at this. I can read a medical paper, but I need 20 tabs open to look up all the big words. Every discipline has its own language, and I simply cannot know all the medical terms by heart and still maintain knowledge of electrical research engineering. The brain just ain't that big. I swear I think the vast bulk of med school is learning how to talk medical. I cannot count the number of times I have told a doctor to please "put that in English." My present doctor is also a physicist, so we talk in common English on medical but we get kind of "out there" when we're talking physics.

Bottom line: big words are not required outside one's peers unless you want to to either "dazzle 'em with brilliance" or "baffle 'em with BS."

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

I depend on talking and writing as simply as I can in order to make my living. A lot of the time I am conveying the ideas I have for new technology and when you are trying to convince your board of directors to spend money it is not of any help to as you say baffle them with your bull#. It just makes it more likely your project will not get funded.

a reply to: machineintelligence

It is just the opposite in government funded research. The more one can confuse the agencies funding the research, the higher the chance of getting funded. Go figure.

TheRedneck

a reply to: machineintelligence

Forget about using big words, try using paragraphs.

a reply to: KansasGirl

That's what you were after is it not?

I would say "not".

My vocabulary was largly constructed by this particular book.



It is an old one having been made 78 years ago so you can imagine how many words have entered into the English lexicon in nearly 8 decades. I read this book from cover to cover by the time I was 9 years old. I did not do this for any reason but because I enjoyed it.



My dad purchased it at a library book sale for $5 from a college that was closing in New York when I was about 5 years old. Lots of colleges were closing in '68 due to the riots. I am not sure why we kept this in the family but it will likely be passed on to future generations by being scanned to a solid-state disk.

People take language and expression for granted until you shop a very specific brand of feminine hygiene product in a foreign country at 1:30 in the morning. Which I imagine is how most scientists feel when they find this forum.