I specialise in making businesses’ words easier to read and understand. It’s not about dumbing down – it’s about using the same words we’d say in conversation, and eliminating formal business-speak that people think makes them sound smart, but in fact just makes their words harder to understand. Here’s an example from a well-known supermarket’s* website Ts&Cs:
Before Emma: ‘We may update these Terms from time to time and any changes will be notified to you via the e-mail address provided by you on registration or via a suitable announcement on the Site.’
After Emma: ‘We might update these terms. If we do, we’ll email you to tell you about the changes using the address you gave us when you signed up. Or, we’ll tell you about them on our website.’
This guy looks like he’d use five words when one would do
Same content, but written in a much more straightforward and easy-to-understand way (also, in three short easy-to-digest sentences instead of one incredibly long one).
So what does this blatant plug have to do with ‘magniloquent’? Well, this week’s word is an adjective (a describing word’), used for language that’s intended to sound very impressive and important. So basically the ‘Before Emma’ example above. You can also use it to describe a person who uses that type of language.
The origin of ‘magniloquent’ is Latin – ‘magnus’ means ‘great’ and ‘loqui’ is a verb meaning ‘to speak’ (we also get ‘eloquent’ from ‘loqui’). Smush the two together and you get ‘magniloquus’, which is the Latin predecessor to ‘magniloquent’.
We started using ‘magniloquent’ in English in the 1600s, although its synonym (a magniloquent way of saying ‘word which means the same’) ‘grandiloquent’ had already been kicking around for a hundred years or so. Both these words are still used today, although ‘grandiloquent’ is probably the more common of the two. Unless I’m around of course…
*It’s Tesco’s general terms and conditions. Hey Tesco, I’m available for work if you want your words to be more readable?