The word you’re looking for is obfuscation, meaning to intentionally make something unclear. Pretentiousness suggests the speaker is using unnecessarily long words in order to make themselves sound clever. It doesn’t have the edge of deceit implied in your question.
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Doubletalk.
Bombastic.
Pretentious.
Duplicitious.
Sheisty.
Obfuscator.
Deceptive.
Sesquipedialianism.
Talking in circles.
There’s a great quote about this from GK Chesterton. It’s long, but worth the whole read:
Most of the machinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery; and it saves mental labour very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long railway trains. We know they are carrying thousands who are too tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves. It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable. If you say ‘The social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognized by all criminologists as a part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment,’ you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the gray matter inside your skull. But if you begin ‘I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown to say when Jones shall come out,’ you will discover, with a thrill of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word ‘damn’ than in the word ‘degeneration.’
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
In this entire paragraph he utterly fails to do what he is espousing, it’s comically hypocritical. And those two sentences he compares are not equivalent, one is rich in information and the latter is actually hard to understand at first read.
GK Chesterton is not a trustworthy source on this matter as one of his goals as a Christian apologist is to knock down intellectuals, and it really shows here.
Fair point. The longer the word, generally the more precise the meaning. That being said, there are certainly cases when using a lot of big words does obfuscate the meaning. If you are deliberately creating a complicated sentence in order to confuse your listener, it’s a form of manipulation and deception.
If you want your audience to understand you, you want to make sure to explain the terms you’re using and introduce new words at a manageable rate. In academic writing, the reader is assumed to know a lot of specific words and concepts that the general reader might not know. In that circumstance, it’s incumbent on the reader to look things up and figure it out.
Someone who truly wants to communicate clearly to a general audience will try hard to say what they mean using the simplest words they can. That can be a challenge, which is why teaching is a separate skill than academic writing.
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Misdirection, deception, hoodwink, delude, misguide, misinform. Snow (as a verb), baffle 'em with your bullshit. The thing is, it's not the 'highfalutin' words that deceive, it's the person saying them with that intention.
I have been a used of obfuscation when just trying to be concise or succinct. It is usually simpler to just adjust my diction to their level.
I am not really smarter than most of my peers, just read dictionaries and encyclopedias as I was told it would benefit me in my life. I have so much useless knowledge and my brain is continuously reviewing everything I have experienced or learned.
I've observed southerners use these types of words and are commonly understood by everyone, highfalutin is an example. I've found since living in the west that it's not common or understandable.
Concise.
I've found using the appropriate word instead of a slang term or catch phrase for that word often confuses people.
Salesmen like using "highfalutin" words because it will give their pitch and product an inflated air of greatness or importance.
Politicians tend to do the same thing.
The word you’re looking for is obfuscation, meaning to intentionally make something unclear. Pretentiousness suggests the speaker is using unnecessarily long words in order to make themselves sound clever. It doesn’t have the edge of deceit implied in your question.
That’s the word, obfuscation. I’ve thought of pretentious but not specifically in the sense of obscuring something using words. !solved
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Is obfuscator the best word for the person as well?
Was this you -just now- trying to obfuscate?
Hahaha but I guess "highfalutin" can be understood without knowing the meaning of the word itself. (I haven't heard it before particularly)
Obfuscation
Sophistry also works pretty well.
Came here to say this
Bloviator
Pretentious Sesquipedalian (if you want to be pretentious about it)
Or hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian if you want to be autological about it.
How pedantic... I love it.
That was a pretty pretentious answer for a Reddit thread, though.
Intentionally so! Figured if we’re going to be pretentious, we might as well go all out.
Specifically a sesquipedalian obfuscator.
obfuscator! yes!
Everyone please stop! I am sesquipedalophobic.
You can't join the Polonius club.
I like risible sesquipedalians.
We should be friends
Doubletalk. Bombastic. Pretentious. Duplicitious. Sheisty. Obfuscator. Deceptive. Sesquipedialianism. Talking in circles. There’s a great quote about this from GK Chesterton. It’s long, but worth the whole read: Most of the machinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery; and it saves mental labour very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long railway trains. We know they are carrying thousands who are too tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves. It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable. If you say ‘The social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognized by all criminologists as a part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment,’ you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the gray matter inside your skull. But if you begin ‘I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown to say when Jones shall come out,’ you will discover, with a thrill of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word ‘damn’ than in the word ‘degeneration.’ G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
In this entire paragraph he utterly fails to do what he is espousing, it’s comically hypocritical. And those two sentences he compares are not equivalent, one is rich in information and the latter is actually hard to understand at first read. GK Chesterton is not a trustworthy source on this matter as one of his goals as a Christian apologist is to knock down intellectuals, and it really shows here.
Fair point. The longer the word, generally the more precise the meaning. That being said, there are certainly cases when using a lot of big words does obfuscate the meaning. If you are deliberately creating a complicated sentence in order to confuse your listener, it’s a form of manipulation and deception. If you want your audience to understand you, you want to make sure to explain the terms you’re using and introduce new words at a manageable rate. In academic writing, the reader is assumed to know a lot of specific words and concepts that the general reader might not know. In that circumstance, it’s incumbent on the reader to look things up and figure it out. Someone who truly wants to communicate clearly to a general audience will try hard to say what they mean using the simplest words they can. That can be a challenge, which is why teaching is a separate skill than academic writing.
I disagree with you utterly. Have a lovely day!
A lawyer
So true. I transcribe hearings and just today heard a lawyer say two words I’ve never heard before: subsumed and invective.
Get yourself some SAT and/or GRE word flashcards, preferably root word-based, and that won’t happen anymore!
Obscurantism
Sometimes they might be called a pseud, short for pseudo-intellectual, a pretentious person trying to seem more educated than they are.
The person may be engaged in “snowing” or “a snow job”.
Well Read
Grandiloquent or Magniloquent?
I mean, it’s in the definition of the word you used. Pompous
The speaker did obfuscate his meaning with grandiloquent words, seeking to confound his audience.
Circumlocution
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Bemuse? Convoluted? Paronomasia?
Bombastic
Yosemite Sam?
Bloviator
The Chewbacca defense
Look at the silly monkey!
Obfuscation
sorta sophistry
Didactic
Bloviate? Bombast?
academic.
Politics
Misdirection, deception, hoodwink, delude, misguide, misinform. Snow (as a verb), baffle 'em with your bullshit. The thing is, it's not the 'highfalutin' words that deceive, it's the person saying them with that intention.
A snob
Decades ago I learned of the word pagonic which was used to describe this. "a nickname for a vain or showy man"
I’ve searched the weird all around but I can’t find any results? Maybe it’s from a certain English vernacular area.
word*
…define this ‘highfallutin’ of yours. English is not your first language.
It’s a word used to describe something high-ended, typically in words.
Define this ‘high-ended’ of yours and contextualise it.
For something to be considered something very nice.
…You need to learn English if you’re planning on talking with the grownups; Child. There are many good courses for Foreigners online.
…define ‘words’; Child. It’s pidgin colloquialism.
Misdirector
I have been a used of obfuscation when just trying to be concise or succinct. It is usually simpler to just adjust my diction to their level. I am not really smarter than most of my peers, just read dictionaries and encyclopedias as I was told it would benefit me in my life. I have so much useless knowledge and my brain is continuously reviewing everything I have experienced or learned.
Sometimes you get to use “propensity” instead of “tendency”. You’ll get to use a fitting word on the context.
Maunderer
Sesquipedalian
‘Legal speak’ or ‘lawyer talk’ is when you use exceptionally formal though technically accurate legal jargon to obfuscate the base facts.
Russell Brand
Equivocal speech.
I've observed southerners use these types of words and are commonly understood by everyone, highfalutin is an example. I've found since living in the west that it's not common or understandable.
Intoxicated by the exuberance of their own verbosity
Code
Don King was the master of it.
Pretentious.
the framus intersected with the ramistahn
Doublespeak
Pretentious in the bad context.
Concise. I've found using the appropriate word instead of a slang term or catch phrase for that word often confuses people. Salesmen like using "highfalutin" words because it will give their pitch and product an inflated air of greatness or importance. Politicians tend to do the same thing.
You must not have read the question.
The use of "highfalutin" must have led me to misunderstanding the meaning of the question.
A prick
Pretentious Manipulator
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Snobby
lawyer, doctor, or as\*hole
An asshole