Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Leeron:''' Genetic diversity via sexual reproduction is the key to evolution.

''(confused [[Reaction Shot]] from the Dai-Gurren Brigade)''

"Oh!" "Of course!" }}

** Lordgenome's Head is pretty bad at this too.

** 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.)

'''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.

** 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 [[Alliteration|oodles of alliteration.]] He calms down eventually, but still speaks very intelligently. It's pretty epic, and implies that somebody pillaged a thesaurus a few times, [[Captain Obvious|specifically,]] the sections of a thesaurus between the letters "U" and "W".

'''Evey Hammond:''' ... Are you like a crazy person? }}

* Hermione Granger in ''[[Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire]]''. One of the many reasons why the script was so awful is that it appears when writing Hermione's lines, they wrote them out normally before getting out a thesaurus and changing all the words to make her sound smart. Examples include "Viktor's more of a physical being. I mean, he's not particularly loquacious"; "Again obvious though potentially problematic". This isn't present in the other films though.

* Egon Spengler from ''[[Ghostbusters]]''.

{{quote|'''Pete Venkman:''' Hi, Egon. How's school? I bet those science chicks really dig that large cranium of yours, huh?

'''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).

but time and chance happen to them all.'' }}

** Hell, on the subject of Orwell, the entire essay [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm Politics and the English Language] is a tract against sesquipedalian loquaciousness.

* 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.

*** 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.

* [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Friends]]'' when Joey uses a thesaurus on every single word of a letter he's writing in an attempt to sound intelligent.

{{quote|'''Monica:''' All right, what was this sentence, originally?

* 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.

 

 

{{quote|Ishi: "Shoot those tanks, the blast compression will create a-"

Hunt: "Shoot the tanks, that's all you gotta say!" *BOOM* }}

* 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]]!"

* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'', the hyper-intelligent fuzzy monster Molly peppers her speech with big, obscure, or antiquarian words—but she is equally likely to use teenage slang or kindergarten kiddie-speak. Galatea makes observation of her sister's odd speech patterns [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20080920.html here.]

* Rocky, of ''[[Lackadaisy Cats]]'', the majority of the time.

'''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.

* ''[[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."

{{quote|'''Ambrosia:''' Felicia, I'm '''''twelve'''''. Don't throw around big words.}}

* ''[[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:

* 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|to summon]] [[Super Mario Bros.|us]] to a social gathering of prepared foods and open-handed cordiality regardless of the immense difference in our societal statuses.

* 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].

 

[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:Intelligence Tropes]]

[[Category:Self-Demonstrating Article]]

[[Category:A Failure to Communicate]]