Promulgating Your Esoteric Cogitations

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Emily Undercoffler from Mammoth Lakes, California.

Hello, Emily.

Hi, Emily. Welcome to the show. What’s up?

Thank you. My father always used to say this phrase to me that I always remembered. It stuck.

And he was a man of few words, so he liked to speak very concisely.

And he always said to me, and here it is in my English, English accent,

In promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your superficial sentimentalities,

Beware of preposterous ponderosities.

And all that meant was don’t use long words.

He was a man of few words.

But when he spoke, we listened.

Where did he learn it? Do you know?

You know, I don’t. I don’t know.

But he was very well read.

He loved poetry.

So I don’t know exactly where he read that.

It’s a good question.

And unfortunately, he’s not with us anymore, so I can’t ask him.

Let’s hear it one more time.

In promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your superficial sentimentalities,

Beware of preposterous ponderosities.

Right. So it’s somebody intentionally using big words to make the point not to use big words, right?

Exactly.

There’s something cool about this. And I want to talk about meme culture for just a second.

Meme culture is where we have these images that we pass around and they have text on them.

And this is the way the Internet, you know, makes its jokes, basically.

And ideas spread in this way, and images spread in this way,

And politics can happen in this way.

And this passage that you quote actually comes from something that feels a lot like meme culture.

There is an early example of this.

It’s the earliest that I know of, of a whole paragraph that starts with your sentence

And continues on in more of the same language in an education journal from 1875.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow, that’s fascinating.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And can I just read a little bit more of it?

So after your sentences, it says, or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platinous ponderosity.

Let your conversational communications possess a clarified conciseness, a compacted comprehensibleness, a coalescent consistency, and a concatenated cogency.

Eschew all conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejun babblement, and asinine affectation.

And there’s even more.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

I wonder if that’s where he got it from.

Well, the thing is, that paragraph was passed around everywhere.

You can search Google Books for a version of your sentence,

And you will find it again and again, journal after journal, newspaper after newspaper.

It’ll even appear in satirical places, and people sometimes edit it,

And they make their own versions, or they shorten it.

And the closing line of it is often, in other words,

Talk plainly, briefly, naturally, truthfully, purely.

Keep from slang. Don’t put on airs.

Say what you mean, mean what you say.

And don’t use big words.

Oh, I love it.

I’m sure he’s looking down from heaven and enjoying this very much.

Yeah, right?

But I love the idea that he’s passed it on to…

Now, do you have children, and have you passed this on to them?

Our nieces and nephews.

I have got children.

But, you know, I did try to pass it on to them, but I need to try harder.

Yeah.

Because it didn’t sink in with them.

Write it in their birthday cards every year.

I love that.

That’s amazing.

That’s marvelous.

We’ll put this whole paragraph online.

It’s too much to read on the air, but it’s hilarious.

Somebody worked really hard on this.

And it is mostly author unknown.

This particular one from 1875 just says Hagerman at the end of it.

And I don’t know who Hagerman is or was.

Okay, but I’ll look it up.

That’s fascinating.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, sure.

This is why I love your show.

Thanks for calling.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you for sharing that linguistic heirloom, Emily.

Oh, you’re welcome.

Take care now.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

Goodbye.

Okay.

That’s wonderful.

So, in other words, eschew obfuscation, right?

Yeah, exactly.

And you wonder if that particular two-word phrase originated from somebody who was aware

Of this particular bit that had been passed around.

I mean, we’re talking hundreds if not thousands of times it had been reprinted throughout the English-speaking world.

Newspapers, yeah.

What fun.

It’s pretty delicious to say, right?

Yeah, it is delicious to say.

And the point is still good, right?

Why use a big word when small words will do?

I think it illustrates the point perfectly.

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