dEhiN’s Blog

A friend of mine – Steve Mah – posted the following note on his Facebook notes page:

Elitism
“I have always wondered whether there is some merit in presenting one’s perspective with some degree of equivocation, reducing its accessibility. The accessibility thus reduced, the argument would be impervious to objections from individuals not possessing the thoughtfulness or the capacity to deconstruct it–in a sense, it might be assumed that those who cannot overcome this barrier would not have constructive input in the first place.

I’ve always wondered: is there a benefit to being unclear? If you make an argument clearly, absolutely anyone can disagree with you. If you aren’t clear, only the people who can figure out what you’re saying (or people who recognize the argument, despite it not being clear) can disagree with you. Maybe those people are the only ones who would have useful criticism anyway?”

Without digressing into commenting on the main point in the note – I’ll leave that up to you to internally or externally debate – I would like to comment on Steve’s writing:

I really enjoy Steve’s usage of the English vocabulary. It’s not often that I come across any sort online article that’s intelligent in terms of the specific words chosen to convey the idea(s) purported. I have come across well-written articles, but to me a well-written article is separate from the vocabulary used. A well-written article is well-written due to the structure of flow of ideas, and includes vocabulary and grammar used, but is so much more than that. As such, I have read well-written articles with bad grammar and spelling issues. I have even read popular well-written articles with bad grammar and spelling issues! But Steve uses the rich, varied English vocabulary to convey his meaning, and does so without sounding condenscending or improperly using “big” words.

One of the beautiful benefits to English borrowing from other languages is that each word has specific connotations; it’s often hard to properly translate an English phrase into another language because of this connotational aspect to our words. However, it’s hard to find someone today who recognizes that, and uses it to their advantage. I find that even I don’t have as great a grasp of the varied English vocabulary as I would like to. Many times when thinking of how to convey a meaning, whether written or spoken, I try to use specific wording to convey my full intention. In other words, if I can say something in 5 words, why say it in 10? But this requires me to know the “big” words in English, and especially know their connotations and their context.

On an ending thought: I wish the Western school system focused more on teaching the varied English vocabulary, especially in today’s social networking and social media world.

DH