Simple words are better words.

*Drum roll*

Meet our Fourth Guest Writer, Mw Waqas, from DHA Suffa University, folks!

The Student Blog met him at ROTMUN 2012, he was there as an ACD of SPECPOL and soon agreed to write for the blog. This guest writer is not only an active MUN-er and a Public Speaker but also the President of Seminar and Exhibition Society and the Vice President of Entertainment and Events Society at his university. Talk about a busy bee!

Even then, Waqas took out and spun an excellent write-up filled with humor and an important lesson that we'd all agree to agree with.


One lazy Sunday afternoon as I was passing time watching YouTube videos, I stumbled upon a
video called “World championship of public speaking 2012” an event organized by Toastmasters
International (the leading organization in public speaking and leadership development). As I watched
what were probably some of the best speeches I have heard in my life, I noticed one thing common
in them, all of the speeches had almost NO fancy or high end words used them, they were all very
simply phrased that even a 4th grader could easily understand them. I already knew the reason why
the speakers had chosen such simple vocabulary, and as I thought a little more about this issue, it
became clear to me … that Simple words are BETTER words.

Imagine if in the movie Dark Knight the joker had said “Why severely austere?” instead of saying
his famous dialogue “why so serious?” Would it had made the same impression and captivated
the audience in the same way? Or imagine if the lyrics of Carly Rae jepsen’s hit single went like
this “imaginably divulge with me” instead of being “call me maybe” would it still be smashing hit song
of the year? And would you be singing it? Probably NOT.

The fact is that simple words leave a more lasting impression and make a deeper impact on ALL of us,
be it an average joe person or a highly intellectual son of an Einstein. And the reason for this is not
our vocabulary skills but actually our human psychology.

A human brain has the tendency to respond, remember and process those things faster which it is
more familiar with (I.e which are repeated more often) that is why if you play a game again and again
you become an expert in it and that is why you are able to remember a stranger’s name clearly if they
have a common name like Anam or Amir etc. Similarly simple words that we frequently use in our
daily lives are easily processed and understood by the brain and create a lasting impression.

To make an impression or to make a point … that is the question

Here is the dilemma that we must face while making our choice of words, yes it is true that using long
and fancy words make us look smarter and more intellectual but as discussed above but they will be
understood less making what you are saying not as clear. So you have to make a choice whether you
want to make an impression on the audience or get your point across.

Thus we can say that level of understanding of the audience is inversely proportional to the level of Vocabulary used.

However there is a time and place for using fancy, high vocabulary words, such as when you are
writing an essay, attempting your English exam or writing a formal report these are the situations
that require you to show off your intellect and the level of vocabulary that you posses.

But when you are writing an article, composing a song, making a speech or just arguing with your
friends In short ANY communication activity in which your objective is to make yourself be heard and
to get your point across always remember Simple words are BETTER words.