“Not knowing to any degree of certainty, I decline to elucidate lest I should prevaricate.” This was one of my grandfather’s favorite expressions and one that I use on my composition students when we talk about word choice and voice. Do you know what it means without using a dictionary or thesaurus? When I my students what I just said, they usually answer, “I don’t know.” I tell them they are correct. Then they are really confused.

Do academics talk the way they write? I don’t think so. Several years ago my father went on a weekend trip with a group of men from the church we attend. Among the men was the pastor of the church. My father came home amazed at the sense of humor, down-home attitude, and genuine earthiness of the pastor. He was surprised that a man with his education and devotion to God would tell jokes in the ice cream store at midnight. I think academics are the same. When they are with a group of people they are not trying to impress with their erudite dialogue (I did not look up either of those words), they probably use slang and begin their sentences with coordinate conjunctions. They may even split their infinitives and mix their metaphors. It is only when they try to impress an audience (or scare them) that they resort to multi-syllabic words from the academic-speak side of the chart. They probably speak from the other side of the chart. This is not to say that a few words won’t eventually cross over from academic-speak to Realspeak, but most will remain enshrined on the academic side.

This type of vocabulary building and use engenders inert knowledge. Think back to the vide we watched on our first night of class. Inert knowledge is that information we posses but do not use. This is the same as dividing our words, or encouraging our students to, into separate lists, some to be used regularly and others to be saved for special occasions. This is not to belittle the use of a thesaurus or dictionary. A good vocabulary is a wonderful thing. But it only serves its function when it enhances communication, not when it obfuscates it. (Do you like that word? It is on my academic-speak list. I know it but don’t use it. Is it better than obscures? No. neither is it worse because both are clear.) While building a good vocabulary is to be admired, the goal should be to communicate, to share ides, to be inclusive. Otherwise we are writing without an audience.

To change metaphorical horses in mid-stream, I want to tell you about my literature class this morning. The students are each leading the class discussion one time over the course of the semester. The instructions state that the student does not have to come to class with answers, or explanations, or an analysis of the reading. They simply need to have done several careful readings of the text. The presentation this morning was about “Harlem” by Langston Hughes. As the student was finishing, he referred to a criticism he had read that alleged that the jagged form of the right had side of the poem on the paper was a symbol for the violence in the African-American community. The jagged edge represented broken class or the points of a knife while the smooth lines of the ending stanza represented a razor blade. The class was amazed when I disagreed with this interpretation. They seemed to be of the opinion that if it is published it must be true.

The people who are creating these long-winded, dense, bewildering articles are doing a disservice to students and young scholars. While I don’t think we want the simplified language if elementary students, and while I strive to achieve and use a good vocabulary, the words must be used to enhance the ideas, not to obscure them.

Here is a P.S. for you. Each time I compose any writing to be submitted as part of a class, I check the Flesch-Kincaid reading level. If it is less than 12, I am mortified and revise until it reaches at least 12. (Does anybody know how high this thing goes? I read a 15 a few days ago.) Can you guess what this writing earned? Do you care? Did it make sense? Do you care?