Now that I've looked it up, I am torn. Is the author guilty of grandiloquence? Did his marketing team shrug, knowing his fondness for sesquipedalian loquaciousness and the rimbombante tantrums of a prima donna when his pretension is called out? Or should I feel grateful that he has expanded my vocabulary and added an intellectual flair to a writing style that discourages creativity?
Like most humans when faced with a person I do not immediately understand, I assumed he is like me and tried to determine his motives based on the contents of my own heart and conscience. This projection bias often gets us into trouble when the other person is not like you (probability=99.999%). However, lacking additional information about the author's personality and history, there's no harm in trying my shoes on him.
If I had been exposed to the word and then chosen to introduce my white paper with it, I would probably had done so as a smartass. Without malice, of course. It would have been my way of winking at you through the black-and-white text, hoping you didn't mistake me for a grandiloquent, pretentious twit. I would have hoped that 80% of the readers skipped that arcane word and dug into the meat of my paper, that 10% of the people would have looked up the unfamiliar word and found themselves edified, and the final 10% would be familiar with the word and assume (in error) that I am at least their intellectual equivalent.
Fortunately, I was exposed to the word through the aforementioned white paper. Now, I not only know what it means but I know one way to not use the word: in a white paper. I am sure there is a time and place for that word just as there is for everything else. But if you want to be read, you must consider your audience. For example, this blog is mostly read by spambots and Russians seeking to sell penile enlargements, if the unpublished comments are any guide. And technical white papers are read by young, overworked people who may only have a high school diploma and a certification or two.
The final result in my case was that I paused at the first word: Prolegomenon. That word distracted me, and I have since researched the word and written this blog post. I'm not sure if I can find the white paper again--I doubt I will find time to read it now. Other readers may have overlooked it or judged the paper as a waste of time based on the prominence of such a pretentious and abstruse word.
I'm glad that I learned a new word, and that I have this fresh reminder to seek to be intelligible more than intelligent. Unless you hold to the wisdom of Oscar Wilde who warned, "Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out."
I leave you with a new favorite quote from an old favorite wordsmythe, William Shakespeare:
He's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike. (Sebastian in The Tempest)
