Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
▲[[File:teodmpoteaopofmp_2091.jpg|frame|[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/fashion-swat/science-fair-swat.php?page=9 In other words], the effects of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila_melanogaster fruit flies] on the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphenol_oxidase browning] of [http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/apple.htm apples].]]
''Sesquipedalian'': A long word, or characterized by the use of long words. From the Latin roots meaning "a foot and a half long."
''Loquaciousness'': [[Con Air|That would be garrulousness, verboseness, effusiveness. How about "chattiness"?
A predilection by the intelligentsia to engage in the manifestation of prolix exposition through a buzzword disposition form of communication notwithstanding the availability of more comprehensible, punctiliously applicable, diminutive alternatives. Also known as "gross verbosity".
In brief: [[TV Genius|"smart" characters]] using long words when short ones would be better. Characters afflicted with this trait often seem to go out of their way to over-complicate their speech, probably because writers think that this is the only way to show that someone is more intelligent than the average writer. This could also be the trait of a particularly anal-retentive character who always has to be right, the trait extending so far that the character always has to use ''exactly'' the [[Grammar Nazi|right]]
Occasionally such characters may drop the long words if things get particularly dire, to emphasize just how bad things are (in the same way as a [[Sarcasm Failure]]). Alternatively, they may get even ''more'' wordy as they get more emotional, leading to increasingly detailed but ultimately incoherent ranting that falls too easily into [[Wangst]]. Frequently another character will respond with something like "Wouldn't it be easier to just [whatever the brainy person said, in layman's terms]?" or "And [layman's terms version], too!"
Ironically, [
One of the symptoms of [[Spock Speak]]. Usually also a [[Motor Mouth]]. Often takes advantage of the fact that [[Talking Is a Free Action]]. See also [[Techno Babble]], [[Expospeak Gag]], [[Antiquated Linguistics]], [[Sophisticated As Hell]], and [[Department of Redundancy Department]]. Often a component of [[Little Professor Dialog]]. If someone tries for this and can't get the words right, they're perpetrating [[Delusions of Eloquence]]. If the ''author'' commits this, see [[Purple Prose]]. The word [[Antidisestablishmentarianism]] is almost guaranteed to show up as well.
Very heavily associated with the [[Steampunk]] genre in particular, and [[Truth in Television]] in that case, as the Victorians ''did'' speak a form of English that was more complex and verbose, and less dumbed down than current usage.
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It's worth noting that there is a word for the ''fear'' of long words; ironically, it's "sesquipedalophobia" often exaggerated by people into "hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia".
The polar opposite of [[Buffy
{{examples|Examples}}▼
== Animated
* Episode 22 of Azumanga Daioh does this is the English Dub. In the Japanese version, it's just [[Gratuitous English]].
* Leeron in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' frequently does this after the [[Time Skip]], with "short versions" inevitably following after he loses his audience.
{{quote|
''(confused [[Reaction Shot]] from the Dai-Gurren Brigade)''
'''Leeron:''' ''(makes a heart shape with his fingers)'' [[
"Oh!" "Of course!" }}
** Lordgenome's Head is pretty bad at this too.
* ''[[Genshiken]]'' uses this for its [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]].
** This is done as if the episodes were a college thesis paper; it's done for the whole first
* Yue of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' tends to do this on occasion.
* Ulquiorra in the [[Viz Media]] translation of ''[[Bleach]]'' flaunts his vocabulary in almost every conversation.
* In ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' pretty much anyone in the technical division at NERV does this, Dr. Akagi being the worst offender. "General Purpose Humanoid Decisive Weapon Evangelion" indeed...
* ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'''s Izzy tends to fall into this sometimes when he plays [[Mr. Exposition]], further solidifying his place as [[The Smart Guy]].
{{quote|
* ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'''s Kyon often falls into this during his narration.
** Yuki will often provide one or two syllable answers to rather important questions, be prompted (usually by Kyon) into giving longer answers, and the longer answers end up in this incomparable form.
* Matsuki from ''[[Kunisaki Izumo no Jijou]]'' is prone to this with regards to school work.
== Occidental sequential graphic novels (Comic Books) ==
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** It's a bit of a running gag that Reed is all too often explaining what a certain [[MacGuffin|plot-relevant piece of machinery]] does rather than actually putting it to use, which causes The Thing endless annoyance, since he's the one doing the heavy lifting when they could be done by now.
** Memorably [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in [[Secret Wars]] just after the heroes were teleported into deep space by the Beyonder's machines. (Note: At the time of Secret Wars, Captain Marvel was the Monica Rambeau version, Iron Man was [[War Machine (Comic Book)|James Rhodes]] instead of Tony Stark, and the Hulk had Bruce Banner's mind.)
{{quote|
'''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Mr. Fantastic]]:''' This much I can tell you, Captain Marvel--This device apparently caused sub-atomic particle disassociation, reducing us, as we entered, to proto-matter, which it stored until it teleported us here, to preset coordinates in space, where it reassembled us inside a self-generated life-support environment!
'''[[Incredible Hulk|Hulk]]:''' That's obvious Richards!
'''[[Iron Man]]:''' ''Obvious?'' What'd he say?
'''Human Torch:''' Just hang out, Iron Man. Reed will get tired of talking in five-dollar words in a minute, and then he'll explain in English. Then he'll explain it again to the Thing in one-syllable words!
'''The Thing:''' Hey Torch--why don'tcha just shut up and look awestruck like the rest of us? }}
** Adding to the trope, The Thing is the inverse, not because he's dumb but because he's plain spoken. He can generally understand what Reed is saying even when others don't and sometimes acts as the [[Translator Buddy]]. But some writers forget he's a former astronaut and write him as the big dumb guy because of the way he talks which itself is a meta example with writers inferring the character trait because of this trope.
* Doctor Henry McCoy (a.k.a. Beast of the ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'') does this all the time. In most incarnations, it's for the joy of
** And he does it with insults too; "go suck eggs" becomes:
{{quote|
** On the magic side of the MU coin, We have [[Doctor Strange]]. Granted, half the words he uses ARE made-up, but it's still fun trying to try and follow him through a convoluted explanation of his spellwork.
** The ''X-Men Noir'' version of the Beast, while genuinely intelligent (but not to the exaggerated levels of the normal one), goes out of his way to use larger words that he doesn't quite understand because it gives him a stronger air of intelligence.
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** He once wrote a book report entitled "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in ''Dick And Jane'': A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes."
** ''What if someone calls us a pair of pathetic peripatetics?''
* The Caged Demonwolf from ''[[
** His [[Imagine Spot
* Mammoth Mogul of the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (
* One of the Kingpin's lieutenants speaks like this in ''[[Daredevil]]'': Born Again. Like the [[Sin City]] example above, this was ''[[Self
* In ''Major Bummer'', one of the people affected by EEMs develops an extremely advanced brain (so advanced that his head balloons to gigantic size to hold it), but this has the side effect of making his already vast command of the English language utterly incomprehensible to all but the most astute of listeners, and even then only those armed with a dictionary.
* ''[[Cerebus]]'' features a character known only as "The Judge", who may just be the walking incarnation of this trope. A seemingly omnipotent being, the judge never actually ''does'' anything with his limitless powers and knowledge because he is too busy making long, long, LONG expository speeches using very big words. How long? In his first appearance, he speaks uninterrupted for ''five. straight. issues.''
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* French comic book ''[[Achille Talon]]'' could have practically defined this trope. The [[Character Title|hero]] , a fat ''bourgeois'', adds verbosity to pedantry and pretentiousness to gullibility in an [[Hurricane of Euphemisms|incredible]] [[Hurricane of Puns|verbal]] [[Language Tropes|creativeness]].
* This is a prominent gimmick of [[Batman|The Penguin]] in almost all of his incarnations.
* In ''[[
== Non-canonical material created by enthusiasts of particular media (
* Dennis in ''[[The Luck of Dennis St. Michel, Viscount Stokington
{{quote|
* Gohan in ''[[Dragon Ball Abridged]]'' delves into this occasionally. Piccolo usually responds with "NEEEEEEEEEERD!!" (The irony there is that in the original, Piccolo was the one with a tendency towards pompous speech patterns.)
* In one of Katieforsythe's [[Sherlock Holmes]] fanfictions Watson actually uses the word sesquipedalian to describe Holmes.
* The Hungarian Matrix abridged series ''Vektor'' has a particularly beautiful example from Konrad Lorentz - AKA the Architect - delivered in [[Creepy Monotone]]. Neon's response is a [[Flat What]].
* Octa in [[The Surprising Adventures of a Glaceon
== Animated feature-length theatrical releases (Film - Animated) ==
* Mr. Ray from ''[[Finding Nemo]]'': "Optical orbits up front. And remember, we keep our supraesophageal ganglion to ourselves. That means you, Jimmy."
{{quote|
* Wordy villain Cat R. Waul in ''[[An American Tail]]: Fievel Goes West'' is often wont to spit out long lines of English loquaciousness, and is often forced to describe his intent in simpler terms. He's voiced by [[
== Non-animated feature-length theatrical releases (Film - Live Action) ==
* The quote at the top is from ''[[Con Air]]'', somewhat turned around to fit the description of the trope. It was spoken by Marshal agent Vince Larkin, an obvious poster boy for the trope, to DEA agent Malloy.
{{quote|
'''Malloy''': Garrulous? What the fuck is garrulous?
'''Larkin''': That would be loquacious, verbose, effusive. How about "chatty"?
'''Malloy''': [to Devers] What's with Dictionary Boy?
'''Larkin''': "Thesaurus Boy", I think, is more appropriate. }}
* Waldo of ''Our Gang'' (a.k.a. ''[[The Little Rascals]]'').
* A [[Running Gag]] in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]''.
{{quote|
** Not to mention "I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request... means 'No'."
* The Architect in ''[[The Matrix]]''.
** Parodied so [[Your Mileage May Vary|brilliantly]] by Will Ferrell in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x82rX-TGIBU this video] from the MTV Movie Awards.
{{quote|
* The villain Heady Lamarr (That's Headley!) from ''[[Blazing Saddles]]''.
{{quote|
'''Taggart:''' Goldarn it, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a $20 whore. }}
* One of the trademarks of [[Marx Brothers|Groucho Marx]] was fast [[Deadpan Snarker|deadpan]]
* Johann Krauss from ''[[Hellboy II]]: The Golden Army''.
{{quote|
'''Hellboy:''' What?
'''Krauss:''' Ze central ganglion... Shoot it in ze head! }}
* [[Meaningful Name|Ulysses]] Everett McGill speaks almost entirely like this in ''[[O Brother, Where Art Thou?]]?'', as does villain [[Eyepatch of Power|"Big Dan" Teague]].
** At least in McGill's case, it's inverted in that the story makes it patently obvious that Everett is using the big words because he's ''trying'' to sound smarter, and because he ''does'' think he's smarter than his two less-inclined companions.
* V of ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' introduces himself like this, complete with [[
{{quote|
'''Evey Hammond:''' ... Are you like a crazy person? }}
* Hermione Granger in ''[[Harry Potter and
* In ''[[The Last Boy Scout]]'', the two heroes are getting pummeled by an unusually verbose Mook's large companion, leading [[Deadpan Snarker|Bruce Willis's character]] to exclaim, "Shit, we're being beat up by the inventor of Scrabble!"
* Can't forget ''[[I, Robot (
{{quote|
'''Susan Calvin:''' My general fields are advanced robotics and psychiatry. Although, I specialize in hardware-to-wetware interfaces in an effort to advance U.S.R.'s robotic anthropomorphization program.
'''Detective Del Spooner:''' So, what exactly do you do around here?
'''Susan Calvin:''' I make the robots seem more human.
'''Detective Del Spooner:''' Now wasn't that easier to say?
'''Susan Calvin:''' Not really. No. }}
* In ''[[Necessary Roughness (
{{quote|
'''Gennaro''': Well, is it fatal?
'''Doctor''': Indigestion? Only in Mexico. }}
* Recommended to Jake in the beginning of ''[[Avatar]]''. Met with limited success.
** This trope possibly led to the downfall of [[The Smart Guy|Dr. Grace]] when attempting to explain to [[Money, Dear Boy|Selfridge]]. If she had said that that Tree of Voices was basically a sentient graveyard containing the entire ancestry of the Na'vi, and that there were billions of dollars in patents to be had in a single plant, '''''maybe''''' Selfridge '''''might''''' have listened. Instead she spoke in techno-babble about neurons, exponents, and spirits. None of which Selfridge considered "real."
* Egon Spengler from ''[[Ghostbusters]]''.
{{quote|
'''Egon:''' [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|I think they're more interested in my epididymis.]]
'''Pete Venkman:''' ... }}
* Doctor Emmet Brown from ''[[Back to The Future]]'' does this occasionally, though not as often (or as badly) as his counterpart from the animated series (see below).
{{quote|
* The sleazy, pseudo-intellectual wannabe [[Southern
* The [[Coneheads]]' speech is a heavy mixture of this and [[Call a Rabbit
* ''[[No Strings Attached]]'': Used quite a bit in the jokes of the doctors.
* ''[[The Muppets|Muppet]] Classic Theater'' featured a particularly multiloquent gendarme in the included interpretation of "The Supreme Potentate's Neoteric Habiliments".
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== Print and written media (Literature) ==
* In ''[[Spider-Man]]: The Darkest Hours'', Doctor Strange uses the longest words possible, much to Spidey's annoyance.
{{quote|
'''Spider-Man''': Really, you could have just said "Yes, they're old", and it would have been enough. }}
* Meta-fictional example: In ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'', Georgina's books are only written in this type of prose. Actually one of the characters think it's less difficult to say "hum" when an unusual word shows up rather than looking it up, with surprisingly good results. Made even weirder by the fact Georgina always speaks in a normal manner.
* In the ''[[Enchanted Forest Chronicles]]'', the nerdy magician Telemain always talks like this, with Morwen usually having to translate for him. However, when he is glared at hungrily by Kazul, a sentient dragon, he manages to speak normally, albeit very very slowly.
** Also used in ''Dealing with Dragons'' of the same series, in regards to a book on the Caves of Fire and Night. At the end, Morwen says something about how the magic had worked, and Cimorene exclaims, "Just the way that impossible book says!" and Morwen responds, "Demontmorency? Yes, I suppose he is fairly impossible."
{{quote|
* Ax gets into this on ''[[
* Walter "Ramses" Emerson in Elizabeth Peters' ''[[Amelia Peabody]]'' series tends to embody this trope through his younger years, though he (mostly) grows out of it by around age 20, as stated by Amelia in "Guardian of the Horizon". Amelia herself could actually fit this trope in many regards, although it may be more her old-fashioned manner of narration than excessive verbosity.
* The infamous ''[[The Eye of Argon]]'' uses absurdly obscure words whenever possible, sometimes whimsicorically making them up outright.
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* In [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''The Elephant's Child'' (or at least, the audio version read by Jack Nicholson and music by Bobby McFerrin), the bi-colored python rock snake always talks like this, for that is how bi-colored python rock snakes always talk, O Best Beloved.
** He talks that way [http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/165/ in the book], too.
{{quote|
* ''[[The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier
* Christopher Paolini apparently feels the need to use a thesaurus at all times with the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'', sparking copious mixed opinions from readers. Some find his writing captivating and interesting, while others basically write it off as a load of crap. Either way, you can't argue that he follows this trope to the letter, and younger readers may want to keep a dictionary open while traversing his prose.
* In [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Neverwhere]]'', Mr. Croup seems practically incapable of pronouncing any ''bon mot'' of less than polysyllabic length, much to the confusion of Mr. Vandemar. At one point he describes himself and Mr. Vandemar as having "funny clothes and convoluted circumlocutions", to which Mr Vandemar responds indignantly "I haven't got a circumlo..." Mr. Croup explains that the word means "a way of speaking around something. A digression. Verbosity."
** This was, however, a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for them due to the particular circumlocution they were employing there.
** There's a heroic example with Mr. Ibis in ''[[
* In the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series, the wizardry manuals are given to [[Magi Babble|insanely complicated language]]; it's mind-boggling how an eleven-year-old girl can even hope to understand it. "Temporospatial claudication" indeed!
** Not unjustified, as these are English translations from a language which was designed from the ground up to describe the (actual, speculative, and alternative) workings of [[The Multiverse]]... or more accurately, reality reflects the ''language''. In the first book, said girl spends around a week of study trying to understand the Speech well enough to even cast a simple spell. I'd imagine a year or two spent seriously studying what's basically a truly comprehensive and utterly ''accurate'' multidisciplinary textbook whose contents constantly reorganize to be exactly what its owner is currently most suited to learn... could produce mind-boggling results, indeed.
* Anything written by [[China Mieville]], although ''[[Literature/King Rat|King Rat]]'' was much less verbose than the [[Bas-Lag Cycle
* From ''[[
{{quote|
** Legend, at least, has it that he once got stuck with nothing to read but a(n abridged) copy of the [[Oxford English Dictionary]]...
** At least this one had the excuse that it was supposed to be the recollection of a scientist printed in an attempt to prevent further exploration of
** Would you believe he occasionally used this for [[Deadpan Snarker|deadpan snarking]]? From ''[[
* Continuing in the Lovecraft theme in ''[[The Laundry Series|The Laundry]]'', Charles Stross would often pay tribute to Lovecraft by jokingly describing eldritch-related things as "squamous and rugose". Of course, as his works take the [[Viewers Are Geniuses]] route, his own characters occasionally dip into this trope as well.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20100722024012/http://www.wetanz.com/holics/raygun-directory.php Doctor Grordbort's Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory]'' is a stimulating compendium of [[Cool but Inefficient|destructive devices]] for all enthusiasts of the genre known as "[[Steampunk|steam-punk]]", plus those gentlemen of leisure who feel that their masculinity would be grossly enhanced by the acquisition of an [[The BFG|Exterminator of Prodigious Dimensions]].
* Marmaduke Scarlet from ''The Little White Horse'' speaks like this. He's a guy who works in a kitchen.
* Pretty much anything written by [[Stephen Donaldson]] tends to veer into this trope at times; particularly the Thomas Covenant books, where he also has a tendency to utilize archaic or obscure definitions for many commonly used terms.
** Notorious, one group of characters in ''The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant'' were described as being "featureless and telic, like lambent gangrene."
** Then there's ''Mordant's Need'', a more "realistic" work than the Covenant series in almost every way... except the swearing. (When the local equivalent of a wizard snaps "Excrement of a pig!" he might just be pretentious, but when a couple of [[Jerk
* ''[[Redwall]]'''s hares and more [[Wicked Cultured]] villains occasionally drop into this. "So what happens when the bally precipitation ceases?" ''(blank stares)'' "Sorry, I mean what happens when the rain stops?" And another time:
{{quote|
"Hmm, I rather think it means treetops, leafy green ones."
"Oh! So why doesn't he say treetops?"
"Why should he when he knows how to say words like arboreal verdance?" }}
* In one of [[Anthony Burgess]]'s short stories, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson are discussing the new King James version of the Bible. Jonson mentions that the initial choice for translator thought Genesis should begin with "In the initiality of the mundane entity the Omnicompetent fabricated the celestial and terrene quiddities."
* [[George Orwell]] once took this one passage from the Bible:
{{quote|
::And rewrote it like this...:
{{quote|
::The entire thing can also be translated to mean "Success is random.":
** Loquacious Bible? Try
** Here's the NIV translation:
{{quote|
The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.'' }}
** Hell, on the subject of Orwell, the entire essay [https://web.archive.org/web/20100715144246/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm Politics and the English Language] is a tract against sesquipedalian loquaciousness.
* This trait is quite common among [[
* Howard Hibble of the ''[[Jason Wander]]'' series is the leading expert on the aliens humanity is currently at war with, and occasionally lapses into this mode of speech. Lampshaded by Jason, who speaks normally but has good verbal skills, when discussing an alien device. Howard describes it as "a metallic, oblate spheroid." Jason translates this as "a tin football."
* In [[Tamora Pierce]]'s ''[[Immortals]]'' series, one of the characters (Numair Salmalín) is encouraged by his father to speak like this, to prove that he actually went away to school.
* Mart, one of [[Trixie Belden]]'s brothers. Other characters, such as Dan and Jim, pick this up from time to time to annoy Mart.
* Tehol Beddict of ''[[The Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' does this as his tradition mode of parlance.
* Jupiter Jones, of ''[[
* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Double Star]]'', the protagonist calls out this tendency as bad speechwriting.
{{quote|
* [[
* Use to the point of tediousness in the [[Twilight (
* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''A Daughter of the Land'', Agatha.
{{quote|
== Non-animated episodic series produced for television networks (Live Action TV) ==
* Harry Morton on ''[[The Burns and Allen Show]]'', almost always lampshaded by [[George Burns]].
* Speech like this is the key joke in many ''[[
{{quote|
** In the "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0 Cheese Shop]" sketch, the customer alternates between Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness and slangy Cockney speech.
* And speaking of John Cleese, in the ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'' episode, ''The Hotel Inspectors,'' he finds himself having to contend with a guest whose use of flowery, overcomplicated language renders him nearly incomprehensible. Representative quote:
{{quote|
'''Basil''': Are you all right? }}
** In "Communication Problems", Polly gets rid of the pushy, selectively deaf Mrs. Richards by asking Manuel to "lend her your assistance in connection with her reservation", knowing that Manuel won't understand.
* The Sixth Doctor in ''[[
{{quote|
'''Peri:''' Or, as we humans say, "Lucky would be a better word." }}
** Pip and Jane Baker were really fond of the phrase "fortuitous would be a more apposite epithet". The Master uses it in "Mark of the Rani" as well. Of course, the Master, especially as played by Anthony Ainley, was always prone to thesaurus abuse.
** The Sixth Doctor's talent for sounding like he swallowed a thesaurus and [[Large Ham|a full meal of cured pork haunch]] shows up a lot in the [[Big Finish]] audio dramas.
{{quote|
*** "Here we go, another voyage around the English language!"
*** [[Tropes Are Not Bad|Raised to an art form]] with the audio drama ''...ish''.
** Couple the Sixth Doctor's vocabulary with Gilbert and Sullivan's music and the results are downright hilarious, as evidenced in Part 3 of the Big Finish audio drama ''Doctor Who and the Pirates''. Can anyone say [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIdDXQ2h1Pc "I am the Very Model of a Gallifreyan Buccaneer"]?
* This was part of the appeal (and [[Narm
** One ad for the show pretty much came right out and said this: "They're teenagers but they don't ''talk'' like teenagers. Watch ''Dawson's Creek'' at [time] on [day]."
* River Tam from ''[[
** Zoe could be said to have done this once when she said she felt "sanguine" about an upcoming meeting. She justifies it by explaining that "sanguine" means hopeful AND bloody, which, as Mal notes, "pretty much covers all the options"
* Sir Humphrey Appleby in ''[[
** Not so much ''incapable'' as very, very reluctant. A short answer could generally be dragged out of him and usually formed the punchline to a joke. For instance, here's how Humphrey confesses his sins:
{{quote|
'''James Hacker:''' I beg your pardon?
'''Sir Humphrey Appleby:''' It was... I. }}
** One time, Humphrey also stops speaking this way [[
** In the ''Hacker Diaries'', the fictional diaries of Jim Hacker and novelization of the ''[[Yes Minister]]'' series, it is stated that he lived out the last of his days in a home for the elderly deranged when "advancing years, [[Talkative Loon|without in any way impairing his verbal fluency, disengaged the operation of his mind from the content of his speech]]."
* In ''[[
{{quote|
'''Ted:'''I'm just happy Robin's happy.
[becomes]
'''Barney:''' Support my hypothesis, Ted.
'''Ted:''' I'm just jubilant my former paramour's jubilant. }}
** The part of the conversation right before this, that is Robin explaining that she still likes Gael, includes the lines:
{{quote|
'''Robin:''' My journey was transformative and I reassert my commitment to both the aforementioned paramour and the philosophies he espouses. }}
** In reality, this isn't a very good plan, since longer words are more often cognates for close languages like English and Spanish.
** Ted talks like this all the time, especially during the college flashbacks, because he
** Also in ''Old King Clancy'' while talking about GNB's firing room, the ETR, or Employee Transition Room:
{{quote|
*** And later:
{{quote|
'''Ted:''' Well, ''after he proposed a vocational paradigm shift, I made an impromptu presentation using a four-pronged approach that really brought him to his knees.''
'''Barney:''' Hit him with a chair?
'''Ted:''' Yup.
'''Barney:''' That's my boy! }}
* Billy on the original ''[[
** The best example of this is "Life's A Masquerade" when he gives the Morphing Call for the first time. Instead of the standard "It's Morphin' Time" Billy-Speak turns it into "It's time for Molecular Transmutation."
*** However, by Season 3, he called out a standard "It's Morphin' Time".
* Speaking of ''[[Power Rangers]]'', ''[[Power Rangers RPM|RPM's]]'' Dr. K does this on occasion (i.e. when she's not being blunt), including to hilarious effect in "Ghosts" when she threatens her leader, Colonel Truman, with inserting laxative into his coffee mug, which would lead to a case of explosive diarrhea.
* Data from ''[[Star Trek:
* [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[
{{quote|
'''Joey:''' Oh. "They're warm, nice people with big hearts."
'''Chandler:''' And that became, "They're humid, pre-possessing homosapiens with full-sized aortic pumps?" }}
** [[No Kill Like Overkill|He even replaced]] ''[[No Kill Like Overkill|his own name]]'' [[No Kill Like Overkill|with "baby kangaroo."]]
* In the episode "Ink and Incapability" of ''[[
* The "genius" types on ''[[
** Brennan once agreed with someone by saying, "I concur. Vehemently!"
** And then there's this exchange from "The Titan on the Tracks":
{{quote|
'''Booth''': What's that?
'''Dr. Hodgins''': It's a common domestic container.
'''Booth''': Oh, like a jar. Why can't we just say "a jar"? }}
** Dr. Gordon Gordon Wyatt does this too, possibly becuase he's played by [[Stephen Fry]]
* Major Dr. Samantha Carter and, to a lesser degree, Dr. Daniel Jackson were often guilty of this on ''[[Stargate SG-1]]''.
** Also Teal'c:
{{quote|
'''Teal'c:''' Undomesticated equines could not remove me. ''(although he was joking that time)'' }}
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Gibbs gets annoyed]] just about every single time it happens on ''[[
* Used frequently on ''[[A Bit of Fry and Laurie]]''. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3515_x8R9c This sketch] is a good example, as its use of gratuitous linguistics turns what would otherwise have been an unremarkable barber shop sketch into several minutes of hysterical laughter.
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[
{{quote|
* Spinelli on ''[[General Hospital]]'', though this seems to be because he's a [[The Rainman|Rain Man]].
* Judge Joe Brown often uses this trope, apparently in an attempt to try to add some class to his "folksy" image (and possibly to intimidate the clueless people who come on his show), but instead he usually ends up coming across as pompous.
* Sheldon from ''[[
** Any of the four main geeks do this often, mostly between themselves or colleagues when discussing theories or projects, but are quick to drop it around Penny as to include her... well, except for Sheldon, but he expects people to accomodate ''him'' in any situation, and will complain about having to do so for others.
* [[Russell Brand]] would also use this trope frequently. Made all the more visible by that he'd only really be doing it to make a [[Nob Gag]]. On a show about [[Big Brother]].
* Rhonda from the [[Direct to Video]] special ''Psalty's Salvation Celebration'' is like this in her first scene, sounding like she stuck her dialogue into an internet thesaurus translator. Thankfully, this is toned down in all her following scenes.
{{quote|
* EB Farnum in ''[[Deadwood]]'' is a blighter for this. In almost every episode, Al has to reprimand him for either using a gillion words to say three, or more often, for repeating Al's short, to the point statement with new, longer words.
* In one episode of ''[[My Family]]'', Abi applies for a job in a library and memorises an entire dictionary to help her prepare for the interview. She doesn't get the job because the interviewer doesn't understand a word she's trying to say.
* [[The Dick Van Dyke Show|Rob Petrie]] tried to explain his brother's symptomatic somnambulance to Sally. She stared at him and said to Buddy, "Could you tell him not to talk to me like that?"
* ''Rome'' subverted this one; Pullo (a common soldier who was not the sharpest knife in the drawer) would occasionally come out with some big ol' Latinate word, which seemed out of place in his mouth...until you realized, hey, he's ''speaking Latin''.
* ''[[Married...
* ''Buck Rogers in the 25th Century'' used this trope at times, especially in the earlier episodes. Often [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by having Buck be increasingly irritated at having to stop and figure out the "simplistic" 20th-century equivalent for whatever the other characters are talking about.
{{quote|
'''Buck''': "A delocking disk..." (Blank look for a moment.) "Oh, you mean a ''key.''" (takes the disc from the guardr, grumbling under his breath) "Why do you people in the future have to make everything so complicated?" }}
* In the ''[[Just Cause (TV series)|Just Cause]]'' episode "The Last to Know," when Peggy tells Ted that her car was towed, he replies:
{{quote|
** Note that Ted rollerblades everywhere. Even indoors.
* Wanda in ''[[
{{quote|
'''Wanda:''' You mean intimidated by my vocabulary? }}
** See also her chant when she goes on strike in "Get the F Off My Lawn":
{{quote|
'''Brent:''' Wow, you do a lot of [[Crossword Puzzle|crosswords]], huh? }}
* Pops up on ''[[
** Fred gets into it as well on occasion on [[Angel]]
* More than half of [[TV Genius|Dr. Spencer Reid]]'s lines on ''[[
== Lyrical and instrumental arranged works (Music And Sound) ==
* Emplaced here is a somewhat superfluous version of the especially popular lyrical work "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". The original rendering of this work was specifically composed for an infantile audience. The following version is for those amongst us who find the urge to utilize the aforementioned trope irresistable, even while making an attempt to lull a young insomniac into a recuperative state.
{{quote|
Fain would I fathom thy nature specific
Loftily poised in the ether capacious
strongly resembling a gem carbonaceous
Scintillate, scintillate globule aurific
Fain would I fathom thy nature specific.'' }}
** Similarly, Three Blind Mice:
{{quote|
A triune entity of myopic rodentia
Observe how they perambulate
Observe how they perambulate
They circumnavigated the agriculturalist's spouse,
Who excised their posterior extremities with a carving utensil
Have you witnessed such an occurrence in your existence
As a triune entity of myopic rodentia?'' }}
* In the Fats Waller song "Your Feet's Too Big", Waller liberally uses long, erudite words during the song, such as "Your pedal extremities really are obnoxious."
* [[Isaac Hayes]]' "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" ("My gastronomical stupensity is really satisfied when you're loving me...")
* Michael Nesmith's post-[[The Monkees|Monkees]] solo work is notorious for this, though his most verbose song, "Wax Minute" ("minute" as in small) was actually written by someone else.
* [[Bad Religion]], a punk band, seem to be quite fond of this. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100913074835/http://www.thebrpage.net/discography/song.asp?songID=24 Here] is just one example out of many. There is also a [http://www.thebrpage.net/lexicon/ fan-made lexicon], for use in all of your pedantic endeavors into abstruse grandiloquence.
** An immense plethora of the sesquipedalian tendencies of the lyrics can ostensibly be attributed to vocalist Greg Graffin, the band's resident "Master of Science."
* ''A lot'' of the super lyrical rappers in [[Hip Hop]] fall into this trope.
** Rakim
** Canibus: who admitted to reading a thesaurus.
** Most [[Wu
** [[Eminem]] to some degree has this as well, as his style is actually very eloquent and verbose at times, despite whatever the topic may be.
** If we're on the subject of rappers, Busdriver, just listen to any song of his from "Roadkillovercoat" onward
* Tom Lehrer's song "Lobachevsky" refers to the title character's first original paper, which had the [[Sarcasm Mode|easy-to-remember]] title of ''Analytical Algebraic Topology of a Locally Euclidean Metricization of an Infinitely Differentiable Riemannian Manifold.'' Most listeners would assume Lehrer was playing this trope
** Heck, half of Tom Lehrer's works are quiiite vorbose. And the other half... Needs brain bleach.
* [[Tim Minchin]]. It doesn't matter if he's currently singing about "[[Cluster F
* Joanna Newsom often plays this straight, because a lot of her songs are fairy tales. They also tend to be long. And gorgeous. Example:
{{quote|
* [[The Decemberists]], anyone? Give [http://youtu.be/sYwkmPKsctQ Red Right Ankle a listen.] "Oh, adhere to me / for we are bound by symmetry."
* Simon Bookish, from his stage name on up, is a perfect example of this. Just listen to his song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK38qy2-jH0 Carbon].
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== Computational, mobile, and other post-television media (New Media) ==
* A common game in the [[Image Boards]] is the "Verbose Thread": everybody must speak with the most convoluted sesquipedalianisms possible, and that includes the [[Image Macro
** Fascinating anecdote, fraternal sibling.
*** I optically perceive the actions you have performed upon the above discussion.
**** I would like to relate to my compatriots above that i am currently revolving to and fro upon the coniferous foundation of my abode, exhibiting so much hilarity i am of the opinion my posterior is detaching from my frame.
* The title of [https://web.archive.org/web/20110824071720/http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/on_the_high_velocity_rotation.php this] blog post by PZ Myers.
* [http://www.textfiles.com/holiday/night.hum Twas The Nocturnal Segment of the Diurnal Period] (aka Twas the Night Before Christmas).
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* The Ultimate Warrior was also famous for this, interspersing feral snarling, grunting, and shouting with long, rambling promos peppered with million-dollar words used almost-correctly. In his later years, he even started throwing in words he made up out of whole cloth, apparently believing his character motivations to be too complex to explain in the English language as it stands. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA3bUTFNtY4 Case in point...]
* Bob Backlund's mid-'90s comeback [[Heel Turn]] was characterized by his speaking with words from the unabridged dictionary; notably, calling the fans "plebians".
* In late 2009, it is Chris Jericho who is noted for using an SAT vocabulary, usually as an insult towards the <s>fans</s> [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] Universe, calling them gelatinous tapeworms, germ incubators, hypocrites, pharisees, among other not so nice things.
* Brian Pillman used to engage in a bit of this. For example, un the promo where Chris Benoit was drafted into the Horsemen, Pillman ranted about how Sting "regaled [his] obsequious lapdogs with [his] reprehensible act."
* Humorously played with in a [[Mad TV]] sketch featuring Bobby Lee as a high school wrestler wrestling a science geek played by...[[
* Gorilla Monsoon was fond of using obscure medical terminology in his play-by-play. A shot to the back of the head would be described as hitting "the external occipital protuberance," while a chair-shot to the back would be said to have damaged "the subscapularis area."
== Transistor soundbox media (Radio) ==
* Eugene on ''[[
** Katrina has a vocabulary to match Eugene's, but is careful to limit her verbosity to when they are speaking to each other, although even this seems to have changed by the time she returned from her [[Put
* W.C. Fields made this into a career.
* The [[Bob and Ray|Bob & Ray]] character Dr. Eugene Stapley, the 'Word Wizard', is a broad parody of this trope... at times possibly just a bit broader than intended. After Bob suggests 'plunging straight into the mail': "Male and female serve only to differentialize one type of living creature from another. Now, undoubtedly some male members of the animal kingdom would be softer, say, to plunge into than others; but in any coincidence, the act of literally plunging into the male would in all probabilitiness be injureful!"
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== Non-electronic gaming media (Tabletop Games) ==
* Bad roleplaying character descriptions can invoke this trope as the result of their players evidently consulting a thesaurus every few words in an attempt to sound eloquent or [[Padding|pad]] out their description to hundreds of words. [http://community.livejournal.com/bad_rpers_suck/5107639.html This is just one example].
* The flavor text for the ''[[Magic:
== Stage-acted media (Theater) ==
* [[Marat
* ''[[Hamlet]]'' spoofs it with the character Osric, who desperately tries to look intelligent by talking this way. Hamlet mocks him by going even farther over the top with it. As you might imagine, a [[Shakespeare]] speech that's deliberately written to be obtuse and impenetrable is quite something to witness.
** Let's not forget Polonius and his love of speaking many words! "Brevity is the soul of wit," indeed.
** And the Archbishop in ''Henry V'', whose loquaciousness over Henry's right to the French crown is usually played for laughs, but also hides the reality that Henry's claim to the ''English'' crown was almost as weak (his father having been an usurper)
* ''[[The Mikado]]'': Pooh-Bah "can trace [his] ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule."
** The [[Modern Major
* Ralph Rackstraw in ''[[
* Parodied to the extreme with Lucky's three page monologue in ''[[Waiting for Godot]]''. Read through it carefully and there is actually a philosophical point being made, but it is embroidered with so much verbal diaorreah, non-sequitors and just sheer nonsense words that it sounds like a complete load of gibberish.
* In one version of the ''[[Three Little Pigs]]'', the judge's page speaks this to a ridiculous extent.
* Jerry, a character in [[Voices From the High School]], decides to imitate the language of Shakespeare, much to his friend's chagrin.
* Parodied in [[The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)|The Complete Works of William Shakespeare]], which includes the line "We have traced the roots of Shakespeare's symbolism in the context of a pre-Nietzschean society through the totality of a jejune circular relationship of form, contrasted with a complete otherness of metaphysical cosmologies, and the ethical mores entrenchted in the collective subconcious of an agrarian race". The published version of the script contains a footnote: "Don't bother reading that sentence over again. It's covering a costume change and is completely meaningless".
== Electronic gaming media (Video Games) ==
* The Engineer in ''[[
{{quote|
* One character encountered early in ''[[
** Edwin too, IS this trope.
{{quote|
'''Protagonist:''' ... Uh, what? }}
* Taken to ridiculous extremes in the fan-made ''[[Phylomortis]]'' [[Game Maker|RPG Maker]] games where ''every single character'' spoke in nothing but big words... including children no older than six years old. Even the [[He Knows About Timed Hits|in-game tutorials]] abused this. That, coupled with their [[Nintendo Hard
** Not just the characters. Most of the menu commands and system dialogue, too. Most games would be content with ending a battle with "Victory!" or "You won the battle!" ''Phylomortis'' capped it off with "You mercilessly slew the obnoxious foe..."
* Sam of ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police|Sam & Max]]'', a six-foot canine shamus, tends to express himself in this general manner. Said manner tends to annoy his partner. Perhaps his most elegant wordsmithing takes place in this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp94UERknaw promo]. Sam occasionally demonstrates that he is [[Sophisticated As Hell]].
{{quote|
* Valve's Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator (Gravity Gun) from ''[[Half-Life]] 2'', and Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (Portal Gun) from ''[[Portal (
** Dr. Kleiner is likewise rather prone to communicating in this manner, especially when the nature of his audience makes it inappropriate.
{{quote|
'''Alyx:''' Is Dr. Kleiner actually telling everyone to... get busy? }}
* Luke Atmey from ''Phoenix Wright: [[Ace Attorney]] -- Trials and Tribulations'' combines this with a flair for descriptions that are over-dramatic to the point of obtuseness. Phoenix can usually only manage a rough translation, usually for the benefit of Maya, who is more often totally lost.
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** Wesley Stickler and his penchant for using twenty words to say what that can be said in five deserves a mention too.
* Lord Rugdumph gro-Shurgak in ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]:'' ''Oblivion'' is a victim of this as well, although he never gets it right:
{{quote|
* Dmitri Petrovich and Stephanie Morgan from ''[[Backyard Sports]]'' definitely fit this trope.
* Volteer from ''[[Spyro the Dragon|The Legend of Spyro]]'' talks like this, often to the annoyance of the other Dragon Guardians and Sparx, though Spyro somehow has no problem understanding him. Example:
{{quote|
'''Sparx:''' Huh?
'''Spyro:''' She was using him as a battery.
'''Sparx:''' Why didn't he just say so? }}
** another one from Volteer:
{{quote|
'''Sparx:''' Huh?
'''Spyro:''' He says he doesn't know what he's talking about. }}
** Bentley from the original series did this. Or at least, the one from ''Spyro 3'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SPzJ9dGtgc#t=02m16s did].
Line 457 ⟶ 452:
** Every character whose consciousness derives (either fully or partially) from a Xehanort will inevitably resort to this, usually for the purpose of monologuing. Master Xehanort gets to deliver a particularly-sesquipedalian two-word insult - "Feckless neophyte" - though the rest of the Xehanort incarnations each have their own chance to try their hands at it.
* Due to her immensely dry dialogue, Shelke from ''[[Final Fantasy]] 7: Dirge of Cerberus'' has been classified as this by fanon.
* [[Morally
{{quote|
'''Boston:''' ...
'''Brink:''' Low, you idiot! Why are you standing there? }}
* Generation V of ''[[Pokémon]]'' gives us [[Perky Goth|Shauntal]] of the Elite Four, who talks like this until you beat her, at which point she simply proclaims you "awesome!". She reverts right back to her normal, diffuse speech right afterwords, though. Apparently she's a writer.
* In ''[[Fire Emblem]] 9'' and ''10'', Bastian is often known for this, and contrasted with Geoffery who often verbally plays [[The Stoic]].
* Ishi tends to do this in ''[[
{{quote|
Hunt: "Shoot the tanks, that's all you gotta say!" *BOOM* }}
* The Protoss from ''[[
* One of the [[True Final Boss]] in ''[[Hellsinker]]'' was called "[[Crosses the Line Twice|Floccinaucinihilipilification]]".
* Near the end of ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]] Chapter 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood'', when Guybrush asks De Singe what he's doing with the Vaycaylian Wind Control Device ({{spoiler|before attempting to toss [[MacGuffin|La Esponja Grande]] into the device}}), De Singe replies, "You see, using my handbuilt Harpsichronitron, in conjunction with my Oscimoligrophiscope to seek out a resonant frequency with the Vaycaylian Climatiphone, I hope to anatomize living tissue on a macroscopic basis!" Guybrush, however, becomes clueless and can ask De Singe to repeat with the purposes of all this machinery, and De Singe can translate that he's using the piano device ("this machine") to make the Wind Control Device ("that machine") "smash people into a fine powder," which, of course, causes Guybrush to say, "[[And That's Terrible|Hey, that's not very nice]]!"
** Also, in "Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay", Guybrush has another meaning to "You suck!":
{{quote|
* Mr. Featherly, the Shakespearean-trained thespian rooster in ''[[Sam and Max]]''.
* Lex the bookworm in ''[[Bookworm Adventures]]'' often speaks like this; this is, in fact, the whole point of the game, as the longer words you spell, the more damage you inflict on your enemies. There's also the game's finale, where Lex {{spoiler|actually uses a slightly shorter version of one of the words mentioned in the trope description to deliver the final blow}}. See [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7i1VW_UK8Q here] (major spoiler warning!).
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* Yvonne Barnes from ''[[In the 1st Degree]]'' engages in this. Of course, she is working for the mayor and she is a witness in a murder trial. Her reputation and image are important to her as a result.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]: [[Skyward Sword]]'' brings us Beedle the shopkeeper. Talk to him in the day when he's doing his job, and he speaks like every other NPC out there. However, if talk to him at night, when he's not on duty, he suddenly talks in a highly affected accent and starts using words like "tenebrous." If you bring it up to him, he brushes you off.
* By the second ''[[
* Kei Nanjo of the original [[Persona (
* In ''[[Ratchet and Clank Going Commando]]'', {{spoiler|Captain Qwark disguised as}} Abercrombie Fizzwidget does this... or at least ''tries'' to. However, he just comes off looking like a total moron as he constantly spews words that don't exist. {{spoiler|Because we only see him for a few seconds, it's unknown if the real Abercrombie Fizzwidget is like this, but given how... [[Cloudcuckoolander|not all there]] Qwark is, it's unlikely.}}
== Internet-originated sequential graphic media (Web Comics) ==
* Vaarsuvius from ''[[The Order of the Stick
** In the prequel book ''On the Origin of PCs'', [[Genius Bruiser|Roy]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|has a go at it himself]] to [[Crowning Moment of Funny|convince Vaarsuvius]] that he's not just [[Dumb Muscle|a big, dumb fighter]] who wants to suborn the smart guy by hiring him.
** For [[Rule of Funny|obvious reasons]] Vaarsuvius is an exception to the usual [[Talking Is a Free Action]] rule.
*** But even then, no matter how long-winded [[Viewer Gender Confusion|he/she]] gets, it's still only a standard action at worst, comparable to casting a spell. [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0010.html Observe.]
* Marcus from ''[[
* The [[Slice of Life]] webcomic ''[[Typographical Acknowledgment]]'' uses this infrequently, most prominently in the title. It is more however a comment on teenagers' overuse of [[Purple Prose]] in any written work of theirs. Naturally, it is written by a teenager who overuses Purple Prose in any written work of his.
* ''[[Penny Arcade]]'''s Tycho, both the author and the in-comic persona, likes to do this, as does his niece Ann (AKA Annarchy).
** When Penny Arcade did the mini-series Automata, Carl Swangee at one point refers to talking about the weather as "the ambient barometric pressure".
* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'', the hyper-intelligent fuzzy monster Molly peppers her speech with big, obscure, or antiquarian
* Rocky, of ''[[Lackadaisy Cats]]'', the majority of the time.
{{quote|
'''Avril:''' ARRAAWRGH! ''(slams Rocky against a wall and throws him to the ground)'' }}
** This becomes even more noticeable when he's around Freckle, who rarely says more than a couple words at a time.
* Massey Reinstein in ''[[
{{quote|
'''Schlock:''' ''(close to tears)'' Massey beat me up with big words. }}
** Equally fun is a few strips earlier, when Ebbirnoth describes having had his [[Bizarre Alien Biology|only (grapefruit-sized) eye]] shot off, and the effects of the drug cocktail he was given to keep the pain under control.
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* In ''[[Bob and George]]'', there's an '''entire''' alternate universe consisting out of people who only talk like this. Sure, they can dumb themselves down to communicate with the lessers, but when at one point there's a present, a future and a far future version of two characters there's only Sesquipadalian dialogue.
* Kin, the yuan-ti from ''[[Goblins]]'' lapses into this when she's stressed.
{{quote|
* ''[[Nature of
* Rose Lalonde from ''[[Homestuck]]''. She wrote a game FAQ entirely using this and [[Purple Prose]], just for one example.
** An eventual character corresponding to her via IM services, Kanaya, has just as big of a vocabulary if not moreso, and applies it in a less purple and more literal way.
Line 512 ⟶ 507:
* ''[[Questionable Content]]'''s Hannelore Ellicot-Chatham will often descend into this, especially if she's having a nervous fit. Faye can also pull it off when she's feeling especially snarky.
* ''[[Suicide for Hire]]'''s characters all use long words, and a lot of 'em. The comic's banner has a caption reading "Yeah, it's got dialogue. If you don't like it, you are entitled to bite my ass."
* ''[[Fetch Quest: Saga of the Twelve Artifacts]]''' Felicia tends to use big words when she talks, which is perfectly fine for her, but awkward for others. Ambrosia [[Lampshade Hanging|calls her out]] on this practice:
{{quote|
* ''[[Exterminatus Now]]''. Professor Lewis [http://exterminatusnow.comicgenesis.com/d/20100613.html tries to explain] a concept to the (somewhat pro)tagonists, and fails utterly. Finally, he went in the ''exact opposite'' direction, and summed it up:
{{quote|
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [
== Internet-originated non-sequential graphic media (Web Original) ==
* [[Wikipedia]] can be said as being infamous for this:
** [
** Here's what Wikipedia has to say about [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tetrodotoxin&oldid=441947764#Symptoms_and_treatment the effects of tetrodotoxin], the poison found in pufferfish:
{{quote|
:::This is pretty typical for articles dealing with the symptoms of various toxins. At least they're (usually) courteous enough to [[Pothole]] the more arcane words so you can just click them and say to yourself "oh, is that all that means?"
** [
Look up Eubonics, I mean African American Vernacular English on wikipedia, without grinning, its tougher than it sounds.
* The [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/joseph-ducreux-archaic-rap Joseph Ducreux] meme is pretty much this trope [[This Is Your Premise
* Lear Dunham from ''[[Broken Saints]]'' is guilty of this at times, especially in {{spoiler|the [[Grand Finale]].}}
* Ezekiel from ''BitF City''. His friend Bola "Translates".
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz_K1Gjrx8c How very charitable] [[Save the Princess|of Her Majesty]] [[Hotel Mario
** This particular style has grown into a fad and been applied to [[
* A number of YouTube videos expand popular videos spoken in vernacular to long-winded pseudo-intellectual conversations backed with classical music, e.g. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBu83-0vJbg An encounter with the Entrepreneur of Sensory Shapeshifting with Purpose of Infiltrationary Actions], known originally as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTj6tauY1JU Meet The Spy].
== Animated media originating in the various nations of the Occident (Western Animation) ==
* [[Evil Genius]] Plankton has a habit of speaking this way in ''[[
{{quote|
** WHO WILL JOIN HIM?!?!?!?!?
** [[The Ditz|Patrick]], surprisingly, talks this way several times, just not to the point seen above. These are usually done as [[Out-of-Character Moment|sudden character shifts]], and [[Played For Laughs|played for laughs]] with Patrick proving just as dim as ever.
{{quote|
''(A thought bubble forms, showing a carton of milk spilling.)''}}
* Reggie Moonshroud from ''[[Gravedale High]]'' often talks like this.
*
* Fellow
▲* Fellow pre-[[Teen Genius]] Jimmy Neutron in ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron (Animation)|The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron]]'' is also fond of the trope.
* Wind Whistler on ''[[My Little Pony]]''. "This meteorological debabacle is quite anomalous." Peach Blossom too: "I will reconnoiter post-haste and ascertain what has transpired!"
** In the same vein, Twilight Sparkle from ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
* Edd in ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]'', often to the annoyance of his less-educated peers.
{{quote|
'''Eddy:''' Scam Kevin. ([[beat]]) ...That's what he ''said,'' right?
* Tish in ''[[The Weekenders]]''. It becomes a plot point of an episode where the others refer to it as "Tishing" and it becomes a widespread saying.
* As Brainstorm (a "sea food platter with a rather high IQ", as he puts it), [[Ben 10: Alien Force
{{quote|
* One episode of ''[[The Simpsons (
** Later played with, when Homer loses his vocabulary without regaining his ability to communicate succinctly.
{{quote|
'''Marge:''' You mean, a spoon? }}
** Some of the more intellectually inclined Springfield residents (Sideshow Bob, Professor Frink) occasionally indulge in this. And then there's Mr. Burns and his [[Antiquated Linguistics]].
*** Being the aesthete that he is, Sideshow Bob however rejected the sesquipedalian but inelegant "disembowel" in favour of a much shorter word when he wrote down what to do with Bart in ''Cape Feare'':
{{quote|
* One episode of ''[[
* Doctor Octopus in ''[[The Spectacular Spider
* Perceptor, of ''[[The Transformers (
** Grimlock also does it when he get smart in the episode "Grimlock's New Brain".
*** [[Transformers: Shattered Glass|I, Grimlock, also speak in this manner in the mirror universe.]]
** Highbrow is also guilty of this, in "The Rebirth".
{{quote|
'''Hardhead:''' Yeah, me too, like he said. }}
** Oddly enough, Brainstorm, who was the actual [[Smart Guy]] of the team, spoke fairly commonly unless he actually needed the jargon.
** You don't wanna get [[Genius Ditz]] Bulkhead from ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' talking about space bridges. You'll miss Perceptor.
** Across all series, [[Call a Rabbit
* The writers for ''[[
* In the 2003 ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003
{{quote|
* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' has this as one of [[Evil Genius|Mojo Jojo's]] more defining (and frequently [[flanderized]]) traits, with a prime example being the episode "Los Dos Mojos", where Bubbles [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|loses her memory]] and believes herself to be Mojo. [[Hypocritical Humor|He finds her approximation of his speech annoying.]]
**
{{quote|
* In an episode of ''[[
* Spoofed in the ''[[
* Same thing goes for Brain on ''[[Arthur (
{{quote|'''Don Karnage:''' My brilliant mind tells me that it may be time for a strategic withdrawal.
'''Mad Dog:''' Say what?
'''Don Karnage:''' RUN AWAY!! }}
* Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown, a.k.a. The Doc, as portrayed in the ''[[Back to The Future (
* ''[[
{{quote|
'''Leela:''' So what you think you just explained to us is that -
'''Farnsworth:''' Correct! This box contains our own universe! }}
* Mr. Longface Caterpillar from the 2009 ''[[Strawberry Shortcake]]'' movie peppers his speech with overly fancy words, which are [[
* In the ''[[
** The Brain does this constantly, even going so far as to rephrase common expressions with more advanced vocabulary ("The game does not conclude until the woman with the eating disorder ululates.")
* Egon Spengler's penchant for this in ''[[
{{quote|
* Tom in ''[[
* Moonrock on ''[[The Pebbles and Bamm
* Gretchen on ''[[Recess]]'' commonly speaks like this.
* The Vreedle Brother of ''[[Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
** Ben's Brainstorm form does this often.
* In the [[Rankin Bass]] special ''[[Twas the Night Before Christmas]]'', the Mayor parodies this. Whenever he wants to sound important, he attempts this, then gives up partway through.
{{quote|
* ''[[Hey Arnold!]]'' had Mr. Green run for city councilman against Councilman Gladhand, one of whom's tactics was using big words. Mr. Green even worried he couldn't win the election because he thought he couldn't sound as smart.
== Nonfictional depictions of the current recurring theme (Real Life) ==
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* Older economists are infamous for their extremely long book titles. You Adam Smith wrote ''The Wealth of Nations''? Try ''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations''. Yeah, baby. Economics as a science also has the most (initially) confusing terminology of any science.
** For example, the interest rate for loans from the Federal Reserve to banks is called the ''Discount Rate''. ''Seriously?''
* [[Older Than Dirt]]: This seems to be a characteristic of ancient Mesopotamian religious poetry. Apparently, the scribes who wrote them consulted ancient dictionaries for the express purpose of using very obscure words and wildly obsolete grammar to [[Mind Screw]] [[Viewers
* Norse Skalds had the habit of describing really simple objects by complex multi-component metaphors, filling their poetry with literary riddles that were deliberately hard to decipher.
** An example would be "Beowulf", or Björn(Bear). Bears like honey, they prey on it. Bees make honey. Wolves are predators. Bears are like wolves to the bees, therefore Bee-wolf.
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** Dave Barry mentioned this in one column, when he went to the doctor because his tongue was swollen. The doc called it something in Latin which Dave claims to have later looked up that meant "swollen tongue".
** The best: "idiopathic". Which means "we don't know why it's doing that stuff".
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** Then there's "iatrogenic", an adjective for diseases '''caused''' by medical treatment.
** And don't forget "nosocomial", meaning that nasty bug you got from the hospital.
** Some doctors will also do this for insurance purposes. Many insurance companies require a diagnosis before paying for a visit, resulting in diagnoses like "benign dermal melanin concentrations" (freckles).
* Computing is one area that has so much jargon (both technical and slang) that when you've had extensive exposure to the field, such as taking a Computer Science degree at university, or have just simply been mucking around with computers for years, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to explain something to someone with less knowledge of the subject than you.
** The [[
** Sufficiently large technical communities can develop their own specialized vocabulary on top of normal technical terms, such that an entire sentence can be incomprehensible to expert outside programmers, and doubly incomprehensible to non-programmers.
*** Triply so due to the fact that some jargon have been re-used to mean different things elsewhere, in both the specialist and layman sense.
* Everything [[Rule of Funny|becomes funny]] if you describe it with
** Also known as "osculation".
** Scientific American got in on the game as well: "the localized knowledge and know-how developed with untutored experience in particular everyday settings and activities--the so-called school of hard knocks"
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* Another U.S. Vice-President who engaged in this was Spiro T. Agnew. He also liked alliteration. Instead of calling the naysayers 'naysayers', for example, he called them 'nattering nabobs of negativism'. Many of these locutions were the product of the mind of his speechwriter William Safire, who would later go on to write the "[[Grammar Nazi|On Language]]" column for ''The New York Times''.
* Composer Igor Stravinsky lapsed into this sometimes; an example taken at random from his book ''Poetics of Music'': "The true hierarchy of phenomena, as well as the true hierarchy of relationships, takes on substance and form on a plane entirely apart from that of conventional classifications. Let me entertain the hope that the clarification of this thesis will be one of the results of my course, a result I greatly desire."
* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20081010152748/http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/ Postmodernist Generator] lets you generate random texts using complex but utterly meaningless vocabulary.
* The winner of the 2006 Ig Nobel prize in Literature was Daniel M. Oppenheimer of Princeton University for his report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly"
* Baseball Hall of Famer "Orator Jim" O'Rourke.
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* Ron Dennis, the former boss of the Mclaren [[Formula One]] team, made such exemplary use of this trope that it became known around the paddock as "Ronspeak". Asked why he spoke like that, he replied, "Adherence to a homogenous lexicon axiomatically optimises messaging consistency. So it works".
* When comedian Dennis Miller starts to rant during his shows, he's pretty quick to break out his more verbose vocabulary in rapid succession, and is difficult to follow should one not be birthed from a tome of words.
* The nonfictional portion of ''The Science of [[Discworld]]'' points out that without the use of "privitives" in
* Jeremy Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism, never used one short word when he could use a dozen long ones. Here's his attempt to sum up the philosophy in one sentence:
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** In other words, a Utilitarian should try to produce as much happiness in the world as he can.
* [[Russell Brand]] has made a veritable art-form out of blending [[Sophisticated As Hell|prolixity and profanity]]. Garrulously, he will pontificate, sermonize, and evangelize, interminably vociferating fustian rhetoric - and all for the sake of a [[Nob Gag]].
* In his interviews and [[F for Fake|documentaries]] [[Orson Welles]] somehow manages to be a
* [[Richard Feynman]], in his memoirs, recalled attending a lecture in [[Hard
* The preface to ''The United States Department of Defense Fact File'' admonishes readers against this trope. See the [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness/Quotes|Quotes tab]].
* The military, perhaps especially the more modern military has that tendency. Some outsiders who don't take time to learn meanings consider it pompousity and sometimes it is, but i's purpose is to cram complex thoughts into as short of speech as possible however awkward the result. For instance "Close Air Support" means air strikes for the direct purpose of supporting ground troops, well, "closely" (as opposed to interdiction which is aimed at incoming supplies and reinforcements).
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