Grandiloquent words
Many students asked me how to use grandiloquent words. I have seen many speakers using hard or specialized words while the audience is looking at them with confusion. In this case, the speaker thinks how perfect and professional he is, and the audience is so attracted to him that they don’t even blink.
At first, I advised them not to use the grandiloquent words, although they wouldn’t listen or accept. But in these couple of years, I don’t say how confusing it is to use grandiloquent words but I let them understand for themselves during the course.
1- hard words
grandiloquent words may seem classy at first sight, but the fact is that we have to know the public speaking skills and methods, not having a delusion of it because the delusion doesn’t have the same effects that the correct techniques have.
For example, someone says: “we have to scrutinize this subject.” Then we start thinking what does scrutinize mean?
Grandiloquent words make our audience confused.
It occurs to us that the speaker knows something that we don’t. Are we that stupid for not knowing the word? Or have we dug enough into our field?
At this moment, we feel terrible and inexperienced.
2- abbreviated words
For example, imagine a speaker talking: “well, in PM we say…”. So what is PM? Maybe someone doesn’t know PM is for Project Management. Even if they know, PM is abbreviated so what does it matter to call it Project Management?
I was in a seminar once where the speaker said: “let me tell you an example. we have R&D. in R&D we…”
I saw the person who sat in front of me looked at his friend next to him and said: “What is R&D? that was his example?”
Grandiloquent words such as abbreviated ones cause confusion.
It’s for Research and Development, but many may not know it. It can be something obvious to us but not to others.
3- specialized words
Some words are not abbreviated and not from another language, but they are specialized, for example, “Absolute magnitude” shows how much brightness a star has and if someone doesn’t know anything about astronomy, won’t understand what it means.
We have to try not to use these kinds of words when we have public speaking, but that doesn’t mean I, as a doctor can’t use medical words in a medical meeting with other doctors. It’s the opposite of public speaking. You have to use hard and specialized words when you are in a special meeting, but if you think maybe one person doesn’t understand what you are saying, you don’t have to use grandiloquent words.
Yes! There are a few speakers who use grandiloquent words, but they have their audience. Try to see better: which speakers have the most audience? Probably the ones who use simple words and examples while we all know they are smart and professional.
The solution to grandiloquent words
Sometimes I use a word, for example; I say: “today I want to talk about Accelerated and Intensive Learning.” Some students look confused, or they don’t know what exactly it is, but I can ask them to google it and learn more about it. Now I haven’t used grandiloquent words.
It’s best to ask the audience to google the grandiloquent words we talked about.
We can choose the right words to speak. For example, elegant, lovely or beautiful. They are all the same. I can say ugly or inelegant.
It’s the words that allow us to have a strong presentation,
Remember not to use grandiloquent words but be professional. One way is to start your presentation with this sentence: “I don’t intend to use hard words, and I try to talk the way everyone understands and learn.”
