Whether it's good, bad, or neutral, life experience tells me I'm a pretty abnormal guy. That's especially true when it comes to my love for chasing down and reading academic articles that interest me. I'm not sure I should be used as a shining example of why overcomplicating material is A-OK.Originally Posted by Chance
Hell, I didn't even look at the study, I just thought the title was funny. At any rate, Byron is proof people actually do investigate what they've heard in passing.
Even with all of that said, and even with my own strong love for $5 words, I couldn't make it through more than about a minute of Haley's presentation.
I think he is purposefully using complex terms where simpler ones would do. I think he is misusing some of the terms, which backfires horribly. I would further argue that even if some of the terms could theoretically fit, there's no science behind a lot of what he's saying. Do we really think that the reason people improve their shooting with rhythm drills is through "neural muscular efficiency" and speeding up the "connectivity from our brains to our trigger finger"? I would be utterly floored if anyone could produce a shred of evidence that the biggest hurdle (if any hurdle) to shooting at high speed is your brain not being able to send "SQUEEZE!" commands to your trigger finger fast enough.
Hand the most untrained person in the world an airsoft pistol, tell them to pull the trigger as fast as they can, and get ready to see 0.00001 splits. While that number is an obvious exaggeration, the ridiculously light trigger and nonexistent recoil of an airsoft pistol will immediately show that a human brain can send those SQUEEZE! commands to the trigger finger faster than a real pistol can ever be shot.
This is what bothers me more than the $5 words: the illusion of scientific principles where none exist. I'm not accusing Haley of being a snake-oil salesman, but when I hear people abusing scientific phrases, it sets off my snake-oil alarm. Once that alarm goes off, it's pretty hard to quiet it down again.
To be clear: I am neither a Haley/Costa hater nor a fanboy. I find great value in some of their material... but not all of it.
I don't think the line is as fine as you make it seem. Actually I don't think the line is fine at all: I think there's a huge gray area between an inarticulate dumbass and a pompous walking thesaurus.
Bigguy's example (which is beautiful, by the way) replaced words of specific meaning with much more complicated words of similar meaning.
Your example, on the other hand, removed a lot of meaning. "This crazy rat looking thing" is not a useful equivalent for "lamb."
And even though the original is "dumbed down" enough that small children can understand it, no one would call you a child for using that language in daily life. If you said, "Wow, that's lamb's fleece is white as snow," no one would ask why you were talking like a dumbass.
In fact, that's the overarching theme of the study that Chance brought to my attention. The more you can simplify material, the more people will accept it, and the higher they will rate your intelligence. The more you use complex words, the more likely your audience will ignore/reject your message and/or view you as less intelligent.
None of this is to say that everyone should stick to a monosyllabic vocabulary. If a complex word needs to be used then it needs to be used. As noted by many in the thread, this is especially true in specialized fields. But I respectfully challenge anyone to tell me why "neural muscular efficiency" needed to be used in this video.
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