I hope to find a better term for this thing that bugs me, this thing that I am currently calling “annoying obfuscation.”
It’s the thing where someone uses language in a completely unnecessarily complicated way, seemingly in order to look superior or to communicate that “this analysis is breathtakingly new.” What’s the phrase I want??
Now, it must be said that I am a great lover of words. And I love big, long words and big complex thoughts. (I studied philosophy, for crying out loud.) But when someone writes something in a complicated way where it absolutely does not need it, it vexes me. Very much. It pushes my “emperor wears no clothes” button. So, I thought that people who share this vexation would enjoy a steady stream of examples about which to rant and the opportunity to share some of their own!
Let me start the ball rolling with the sentence that provoked me to write this today. It started innocently. An artist I like wrote about an artist he likes. So I Googled her and got to this page:
http://www.hackettfreedman.com/templates/artist.jsp?id=GAL
And read the following sentence:
“Gale finds in all her subjects a center of gravity, a realm beyond “thingness” where we can see and feel the fathomless presence of existence.”1
1. Michael Duncan, “In the Center of Gravity: Ann Gale’s Portraits,” in Ann Gale (San Francisco: Hackett-Freedman Gallery, 2000)
ACK ACK ACK. (Said the eloquent blogger.)
Seriously though, what is the term for this? It’s not just pretentious. Not just obfuscation. Anyone?