From sophistication to obfuscation: a story from a migrant

Karen Commons | April 27, 2015

I was talking to a client from a Western European country the other day. He said it was refreshing to be writing in an environment where writers valued the reader more than their own reputation. He told me an interesting story.

He told me that in his country, the way you write says a lot about your intelligence. (‘So far so good,’ you say. ‘Surely this is the case in New Zealand too.’ Well, yes, but wait…) My client told me that in his country, someone who uses very long sentences and very sophisticated words is perceived as being intelligent and well educated. In fact, the longer the sentences and the more sophisticated the words, the more intelligent you are.

He explained that he and a colleague had realised this and exploited it for their own entertainment. What they did was create a game called ‘Bull***t Bingo’ — or rather, that was the translation he gave me for his title. They created a document with three columns and wrote headings at the top of each column.

Maybe you’ve already guessed what comes next? Yes, they wrote sophisticated (but plausible) words in each of the columns. They continued to do this until they had lists of maybe 20 to 25 words in each column.

Then they simply closed their eyes and ran the mouse down each column in turn, stopping randomly. They wrote down each word they stopped at in each of the three columns, creating three-word adjective/noun strings. Then from time to time, they would insert these strings into their writing. So, for example, when writing a report, they might write ‘a facilitative ramification endeavour will be used to resolve the resource shortfall’.

As time went on, they got bolder. Not only did they watch their adjective/noun strings go unchallenged in low-risk documents, but the cheeky pair even sat through board meetings of up to 150 people and watched their creative strings decorate PowerPoint slides! Of course, no one was going to challenge them as that would be revealing a lack of intelligence, wouldn’t it.

In New Zealand, our business writing style is different to this. It’s simpler and more focused on the reader. If you learned English in another country and would like to know more about how to shift your writing to a New Zealand style, check out our Writing for the Kiwi Workplace workshop.

What’s different in Aotearoa New Zealand?

If you’re a professional who learned English in another country, you may find it hard to adapt your writing to the New Zealand workplace. Find out how culture influences communication, and how plain language can help you.

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(Last updated: November 2024)

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