JS Tip 585: Leadership and Short Words

The question: “Why do so many people use big words?”

The answer: “People think big words make them sound smarter.” 

Our response: “Big words do not make you sound smarter. They make you sound pompous.”

The great communicators used short words.

Play a game. Who said this? When? Where?

The Quotations

  1. “Tear down this wall!”

  2. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” 

  3. “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

  4. “Here I stand, I can do no other.” 

  5. “And yet it moves.”

The Answers

  1. Ronald Reagan on June 12th, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

  2. Franklin Roosevelt on March 4th, 1933, on the East Portico of the Capitol Building, during his first inaugural address. 

  3. Julius Caesar. About 47 BCE in a letter to the Roman Senate. 

  4. Martin Luther on April 18th, 1521, at his heresy trial in Worms, Germany.

  5. Galileo in 1633 after being tortured and forced to recant his findings that the earth moved around the sun.

The Discussion

The quotations total thirty-two words. No three-syllable (or more) words. Four two-syllable words. Twenty-eight one-syllable words.

The great communicators used short words.

We love this stuff. (Four one-syllable words.)  

Kurt Weiland