12 March 2019

Succubustic? The Harrowing Affects of BigWorditis

"The ruling’s succubustic adoption of the defense position, and resulting validation of the defendant’s pseudohermaphroditic misconduct, prompt one to entertain reverse peristalsis unto its four corners."

Per the ABA, that's a direct quote from a petition for appeal. The ABA article, and apparently the California appellate court, concentrate on this as gender bias. I'm not so sure. That looks a lot like someone who was angry and suffering from BigWorditis.

BigWorditis is a terrible disease that inflicts one in five attorneys, one in three politicians, one in one doctors, and three in one professors in                 Studies. It is the use of large words to make one's self and one's writing look more impressive. Symptoms include using the word "one" instead of "you" in a sentence such as "It is the use of large words to make one's self and one's writing look more impressive", using large aggregate words which do not make any sense in context, and using words you seem to not understand the meaning of because they sound good and approximately correct.

As I look at the sentence above, the author clearly has two of the three symptoms. "Pseudohermaphroditic misconduct" translates misconduct of a type that is related to a person apparently, but not really, possessing both male and female genitalia. Unless the author read a study I missed (always possible), I'm not sure there is a scientifically noted or even a biased stereotypical behavior particularly associated with hermaphrodites or their pseudos - much less a particularized misconduct. This sentence fragment probably falls under both of the last two symptoms.

"Succubistic adoption" leaves one to wonder if perhaps the term aimed for was "sycophantic adoption." The two words have the same amount of syllables and hit many of the same consonant notes above the vowel downbeats. And sycophantic makes sense in context. It ain't gonna make any judge happier with you, but it does make linguistic sense. I diagnose this sentence fragment as falling into symptom three.

What's the cure for BigWorditis? First of all, instead of the sensitivity training the Bar is likely to require this attorney to sleep through er . . . I mean attend, make the attorney complete one year of eighth grade English. This is should allow his language to progress to the level of simple clarity. If you are writing anything that an eighth grader couldn't comprehend then there should be some very specific reason for it. Driving that lesson home is the only known cure for this disease. Unfortunately, this outbreak has spread so far that I fear that we shan't find medicaments correspondent to the necessity.

1 comment:

Windypundit said...

"What the cure for BigWorditis?"

Strunk and White. Repeat as needed.