Fancy words just confuse... ( Archived) (47)

Perhaps likewise, you need to live here before labelling UK people as thinking themselves superior.

My intention is always to refine arguments with the aim of improving my own understanding and awareness of issues. Perhaps you mistake that for me thinking myself personally superior, rather than going through a process of making each argument (in the philosophical sense) superior to the last one, whether I proposed it, or someone else did.

Certainly, one cannot learn, nor progress from people who agree with you all the time. Personal progress relies upon being challenged.

My mum, for whom English was her second fluent language, said she preferred English because it was so expressive - so many words have 20 others that mean roughly the same thing, but are all subtly different. If I'm arguing a point, or describing something, I like to get the version which exactly expresses the nuanced meaning I wish to convey.

I regularly use the dictionary, including when I'm reading other people's posts. I put a lot of effort into trying to convey my own and understand others' true meaning. Yes, fancy words can confuse, but so can simple ones: both are open to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or interpretation from our own value framework.

The reason why the law and legal documents are so confusing to the untrained reader is because each word has a precise a meaning as possible to limit confusion and misinterpretation of the law by those who are trained to read it. That's a good thing, but the downside is the rest of us can fall foul of legal agreements we have undertaken, but not fully understood.