Hey Gunners: No One Thinks Your Big Words Make You Sound Smart

Back to school time means back to That Gunner Guy or That Gunner Girl dominating every class discussion by using completely unnecessary Latin terms. If you are particularly unlucky, this year That Gunner will have decided to use something like nihil peti potest ante id tempus, quo per rerum naturam persolvi posit because they are pretty sure you are wowed by their big brain. Now you can rely upon actual factual scientific studies to fuel your hatred of that person, because the bigger the unnecessary words, the dumber the gunner. It’s just science fact.

People who sprinkle long, complicated words in their writing are viewed as less intelligent by readers, according to a 2006 study in Applied Cognitive Psychology. Talking too much and too loudly, or being the first to blurt out an answer in a meeting may also backfire—those behaviors can be interpreted as insecurity, experts told the Wall Street Journal.

No idea why this Hot New Science News is just being written about over at fancy lawyer places like the ABA Journal just now if the study was in 2006. We are bitter lawyers, not bitter scientists. Who cares, anyway? We’re just glad to have our feelings confirmed.

So what should you do to make your fellow law students/employees/drinking buddies/fantasy football team think you are in possession of a big beautiful mind?

Wearing eyeglasses can lead strangers to regard you as more intelligent, says a 2011 study in the Swiss Journal of Psychology.

Using a middle initial makes people expect you to perform better on a competitive intellectual quiz, according to several studies of European and U.S. subjects published last year in the European Journal of Social Psychology; middle initials are linked in many people’s minds to higher social status and education.

Eh. You probably still look pretty pretentious with the no-prescription glasses and suddenly demanding people call you Bill S. Preston Esquire