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Fancy words
Washington Monthly, April, 2005 by Charles Peters
Did you see The Washington Post article by Michael Dobbs that the SAT prep courses are now urging students to use fancy instead of simple words when writing the newly required essay? They recommend "antithesis" over "opposite," and "irrefutable" or "incontrovertible" instead of "true." And for "false," they prefer "untenable" or "fallacious." They must think Hemingway would fail the SAT.
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I've been fortunate enough to have edited a good many really fine writers. They have taught me that the fancy word is justified only when it is truly more precise than a simple word, or when it makes the reader laugh, and is at least forgivable when the writer is desperate for a synonym. The worst way to use fancy words is to impress the reader with the writer's intelligence. Yet this seems to be exactly what the SAT prep courses are recommending.
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