A Defense of Wordiness in the Word
by Aaron DeWeese
A former acquaintance of mine (I shall hereafter refer to their person as one Ms. J. Dubedat), whom often was known to overstep the boundaries of familiarity with her acquaintances, was in the habit of calling me, at every chance, a neo-intellectual, simply due to my love of rare, obscure, archaic words. I think, had Dubedat the knowledge, she rather would have called me a pseudo-intellectual—that term being more fitted to her intended insult.
It was very obvious to me that Dubedat's favorite acronym to use as a reply to every online conversation—her word to type for every occasion, other than when she was shoveling ad hominem attacks upon mine head—was "lol".
Shakespeare's Polonius said that "brevity is the soul of wit". Shakespeare's Polonius would not say that had he been borne into the world of netspeak.
I suspect that Ms. Dubedat's habitual use of slang was due to her fear of being considered—by those peers of hers yet remaining—a pseudo-intellectual. She wished to be ambiguous, to not burden herself with the yoke of assertive opinion, to not speak from her heart or her mind, to appear in her visitations upon all matters with friendly pluralistic sneering visage—in other words, she wished to be damnably annoying to everyone, reserving for herself, in secret, a perverse feeling of assured superiority.
For Dubedat, being an intellectual must have been something that was utterly unattainable. She perhaps thought it was a title for the one percent of the population having an IQ of 170 or higher. To then see me going about using words she did not know the meaning of was akin to blasphemy. She must cut me down, bring me down to the vocabulary level of everyone else, to the level of herself! Large vocabularies are for only authenticated academic intellectuals!
Aldous Huxley simply stated that “An intellectual is a person who has found something more interesting than sex.” Just think of our culture, and you can see where everyone's mind lay. He was right - that which is not sex-centered, is intellectual! Nearly everything sold in our society is a product which claims that we could have all the sex we could ever want if we would only purchase that material which would make us irresistible. Materialism is anti-intellectualism. Jack London’s Wolf Larsen, the antagonist of “The Sea Wolf”, could only grasp at philosophy and literature as a man grasping at the morning mists, finding no meaning in life other than pleasure and survival, which to him, was unattainable.
Let me turn now for a moment, in defense of myself, to the discussion of sesquipedalian loquaciousness versus simplicity of writing. Is less more? According to the experiments of Daniel Oppenheimer at Princeton University "Anything that makes a text hard to read and understand, such as unnecessarily long words or complicated fonts, will lower readers' evaluations of the text and its author".
I for one consider the wordiness of Melville, the obscurity of Joyce, the scatological encyclopedicness of Rabelais, to be exquisite. The broader the vocabulary of a writer, the more I am impressed, the more I am indebted to them. I actually dreamed of rare precious archaic words after having read Sir Thomas Browne's "Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial." I think Oppenheimer's experiment was biased, being carried out by non-readers, who, of course, make up the majority of the world today. I believe the majority of bibliophiles and print addicts will always disagree with Oppenheimer's results.
Isaac Asimov stated that his goal in writing was to write as simply and clearly as possible. Who here will confess that his prose has not aged too well? His ideas are still brilliant. He believed that the relating of his ideas must be "dumbed down" for the public. I cannot tell you how infuriated I become at modern translations of old texts and at abridgements. Let me take us further into the argument.
William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway—these two writers are as diametrically opposed in style as you could possibly wish for.
First, William Faulkner, speaking of Ernest Hemingway: "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
And Hemingway’s response: "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
Now Hemingway, was to me, lazy in his relying on his readers to furnish imagery and ambience. In Hemingway's response to Faulkner, he falsely alludes that big words contain no emotion. It's not Faulkner's fault if you are ignorant of the English language. Faulkner, unlike Hemingway, does not keep you ignorant of language, but encourages growth. Run to that dictionary and you will be illuminated!
Here is my final and strongest argument in favor of Luciferous logolepsy (Luciferous [adj. - illuminating, literally and figuratively] Logolepsy [n. - an obsession with words], in other words: 'an illuminating obsession with words'). If we do not use words, we lose words. They do become extinct if we do not tend to their care. If we continue lowering the bar instead of raising it, eventuality will see the realization H.G. Wells’ dystopian vision of a future full of beautiful idiots cannibalized.
Let me now return to Ms. J. Dubedat. She, when I first met her, was a Messianic Jew obsessed with persecuting Christians for not following the Bible more closely. Pork was the devil’s food, and she constantly had to guard herself against it. She started college, read Thomas Paine, and became convinced the American forefathers were Deists (this is of course modern conjecture brought about by a movement of revisionist historians). One who takes time to read the writings of the American forefather’s will be convinced of their Christianity—besides of course Jefferson—and with Franklin it's not clear either way, though I find his activity within the Hellfire Club to be quite disturbing.
After a period of unemployment followed by the loss of her house, Ms. Dubedat became a modern Deist herself, or, as she stated, the equivalent of a theistic atheist. It was at this time that both her and her husband claim to have had experiences with UFOs - her husband encountering several craft early one Tennessee morning in a field on his way to work; a few days later, a large craft following their car on the interstate; that evening strange lights, which they felt to be sentient and somehow aware of them, sitting above the mountain peaks at night, outside of their home. Now, I’ve no idea if they were pulling my leg or not, but I do find it very interesting at what time of their lives this phenomenon allegedly presented itself. Her husband allegedly contacted MUFON and had a meeting with a representative. If they made all of this up for my benefit, I must salute them as tremendously and ridiculously ostentatious liars.
Ms. Dubedat one day inquired of my faith and my thoughts on a God who would allow the Holocaust to happen. I told her what I thought, and she never inquired of me again—said she would go crazy if she had to listen to me any further, or something of the like. She told me that should I become educated I would outgrow my faith—see it as something poisonous and defunct in today's world. I've no doubt that this would be the wish of academia at large—to kill off all Christian people (who are commanded by God to love everyone) who do not adhere to their humanistic religion, all in the name of ridding the world of those who are intolerant of others. I do hope that Ms. Dubedat becomes educated herself, one day. As Isaac Asimov said, "Self-education, I firmly believe, is the only kind of education there is."
Ms. Dubedat seems to me quite bitter towards everyone. I hear that she has become published in some manner or other, which surprises me, because I rarely ever saw her write anything than "lol".
Ms. Dubedat, in her fear of becoming a false person of wisdom, was satisfied with the wisdom she gleaned from those who claimed to be wise. She would repeat their wisdom, and think not for herself.
It's tragic to me that Christians are not unlike Ms. Dubedat. Ask them why the modern man should believe in God, and they reply “Because he is God”. The modern man recognizes not this Truth, but the fallacy of circular logic. The Christian has failed. Christians must grow in knowledge and wisdom - they are severely lacking, totally unable to defend their faith against a world which has much wisdom and knowledge.
Charismatic Christians use scriptures to prove to themselves that wisdom and knowledge are only for a certain people—atheist evolutionists, scientists, liberals, etcetera. Reason is evil and "an abnormal way of thinking" [-Joyce Meyer]. To these people of faith education is damnable, science a sin. Many skeptics and believers alike point to 1 Corinthians 1:19, of course for different reasons — “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
To me, there is no incompatibility between God and Science. Francis Collins, a professing Christian who heads up the Human Genome project and has debated Richard Dawkins, sees it the same way. I highly recommend his writings, as well as those of Peter Hitchens - Christopher Hitchens brother, and too of Ravi Zacharias, who takes on Stephen Hawking.
“...in this, Christianity is like all science. The discoveries in science are such as to confound the wise in their own conceits, and overthrow the opinions of the prudent, just as much as the gospel does, and thus show that both are from the same God - the God who delights to pour such a flood of truth on the mind as to overwhelm it in admiration of himself, and with the conviction of its own littleness. The profoundest theories in science, and the most subtle speculations of people of genius, in regard to the causes of things, are often overthrown by a few simple discoveries - and discoveries which are at first despised as much as the gospel is. The invention of the telescope by Galileo was to the theories of philosophers and astronomers, what the revelation of the gospel was to the systems of ancient learning, and the deductions of human wisdom. The one confounded the world as much as the other; and both were at first equally the object of opposition or contempt.” - Albert Barnes
"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called." 1 Timothy 6:20
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Proverbs 1:7
“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” Colossians 2:8
To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all [men], that I might by all means save some. 1 Corinthians 9:10
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” 1 Peter 3:15
I want to tell you that we were made in the image of God — ratiocination is a gift from God. We are to defend our faith with reason. We are to share the simple truth of the gospel.
"For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect." 1st Corinthians 1:17
