Wikipedia:Refrain from employing an interminable vernacular
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Periodically, one may descry a rigamarole of an article, ascribable to the praxis characterized by the employment of an interminable vernacular and turgid argot utilized by a extraordinarily garrulous, pleonastic, and prolix editor. Or, in simpler words, sometimes you read an article that's hard to understand because the editor who wrote it used big, fancy words. When an article does this, it can confuse you, and not actually get any real information across.
In some cases, big words are unavoidable. Of course the article for anhalotine, a chemical compound, is going to mention some other hard-to-pronounce chemical compounds, like anhalonidine, S-adenosylmethionine, and tetrahydroisoquinoline. Other times, though, uncommon words are used when common words would just as well get the point across. This is an encyclopedia, not Scrabble.
Usually, examples of this aren't as bad as the first sentence of this essay. But there's still plenty of times when it's pretty darn hard to understand what the editor is trying to say. For example, this quote from Draft:Harvey Lack: "From the start, he showed a natural aptitude for the sport, developing precision, timing, and a disciplined approach that set him apart from his peers. His early enthusiasm and dedication laid the foundation for a promising competitive career." What exactly are they trying to tell you there? You have to sit down a spell and pick through the sentences to figure out what the meaning. That's bad!
What does this mean?
[edit]Often, these words are found in WP:Words to watch, especially the section on puffery. While not always a bad thing, it is usually a bad thing.
Big words can also be a sign of AI writing, and AI is not a very good Wikipedia editor for quite a few reasons. It just takes a bunch of words it found in the internet, shakes them up, and barfs them back onto your computer screen in an order that some algorithm tells it makes sense. It has no real idea what it's doing in the way that we humans do. While not a good enough sign by itself to determine that an AI wrote the article, it makes it worth looking into it more.
But the biggest issue of all is simply the fact that it makes Wikipedia hard to read and harder to understand.
So what do I do?
[edit]If you're writing an article, make sure to not use words that are too confusing.
If you've come across a existing article that uses hard to understand, be bold and try to fix it! Go ahead and rewrite confusing phrases so that they make more sense to the layman. Heck, if you see an example of it in this article write here, go ahead and make it better![a] In any article, the worst that can happen is that some other editor thinks you're wrong and reverts you.
But what about...
[edit]Simple English Wikipedia?
[edit]Sure, Simple English Wikipedia exists for the purpose of using littler words to get the point across to a larger amount of readers. Doesn't that take care of the need for easy-to-understand words? Just because it exists, that doesn't mean that normal Wikipedia should become an incomprehensible mess of nonsense. For one, a lot of people count on Wikipedia to get a lot of their information (much to their teachers' annoyance).[b] In order to actually help these people, the entire goal of this site, you should keep things understandable. Additionally, there are 7,086,883 articles on English Wikipedia[c] as of November 2025; at the same time, there were only 275,747 articles on Simple English Wikipedia. Since many articles here are not, and probably never will be, written on Simple English, we should make the article here easy to understand.
Technical terms?
[edit]Instead of saying dihydrogen monoxide, just say water. However, there's only one real term for UDP-N-acetylglucosamine—undecaprenyl-phosphate N-acetylglucosaminephosphotransferase. Other times, the technical term is actually shorter. Isn't saying a type a rock goes through dynamic recrystallization easier to understand than saying that kind of stone "goes through a type of recrystallization where, as opposed to static recrystallization, the nucleation and growth of new grains occurs during deformation rather than afterwards as part of a separate heat treatment"? Anyhoo, a lot of that is covered over at WP:Make technical articles understandable.
When the complicated word is more precise?
[edit]Giving the reader a more vivid mental picture is good. Confusing them is not. If you're wondering whether to use the big word or not, it's up to you, but use discretion, and don't be afraid to err on the side of caution.[d]
Using the same word over and over?
[edit]Try not to get too repetitive with your writing, but it's not necessary the end of the world. Remember, this is an encyclopedia, where we try to tell you basic facts about something, not avant-garde literature. It's okay if it doesn't roll off the tongue super well.
In conclusion
[edit]Opt to abstain from making use of a Daedalean patois when a substratal morpheme or locution should suffice.
In other words, don't use complex words when everyday ones work just as well.