Slacker Method for Sounding Smart (Please Don’t Use Big Words)

Posted by Jacques - February 5, 2009

Public Speaker I do not consider myself to be smart. People like Tim Ferris, Warren Buffet, and Leonardo Da Vinci are the truly smart people. I’m content just appearing to be smart (relative to others).

Sounding smart is an important skill to have nowadays. While this isn’t something you can master in a day, there’s definitely a few shortcuts you can take short of actually knowing everything. Pretending to be smart, as it turns out, is a lot easier than actually being smart.

Sounding smart is useful because it means people will listen to you, you’ll get promotions, you’ll get your way, and you won’t be ridiculed. I know you’re going to roll your eyes at some of these so called “tips” but I promise you, if you can employ all of the strategies I list here, people will perceive you to be at least one standard deviation above the average intelligence (see what I did there?!). These can be used at work, or when having conversations with friends or potential business partners.

1. Practice Speaking Clearly
This is the one shortcut that isn’t really a shortcut. Practice speaking intelligently by paying attention to tense, diction, grammar, and the speed at which you speak. It will take a little time. Try watching MSNBC, Bloomberg, BBC interviews. For the most part these guys exude educated, well spoken, and elite.

2. Be Confident.
When you speak, you want to appear confident in what you’re saying. If you’re writing an email, try shortening your sentences. Nothing sounds less intelligent than sentences that start with I think, I guess, Maybe, or rephrasing a question into another question.

3. Cite References.
Even if you don’t remember where you learned something, pretend you do. Say you read it in the Wall Street Journal, or TIME magazine. Whatever fits best. Don’t say, “I read somewhere”, or “I heard somewhere”, it really lacks credibility. If you absolutely can’t think of a good reference then use a time, like an “article you saw last week.”

4. Research Common Subjects.
If you find yourself talking a lot about a particular subject like the economy, or politics, do a little bit of research and make sure you understand the basic premise, then you can fudge the rest. For example, if you want to speak intelligently to the economy, you need to know what GDP is, how inflation works and why 2-3% is a good thing. You need to understand supply and demand, and perhaps more advanced topics like elasticity. I don’t know very much about economics, but I know enough to grill people who think they know how it works.

5. Backout Gracefully.
Sometimes you will be wrong, or get caught in a lie. It happens and there’s no way to avoid it. However, you can minimize the fallout through various techniques. Change the subject but not abruptly, make the argument against you valid to another topic. Talk over the other person before they can finish making their point, and even sneakier, if you know they’re going to prove you wrong, correct yourself before they do. Finally, if you’re backed into a corner, just admit you were wrong with a little class or agree with their counter claim without actually verbalizing that you were incorrect.

6. Use Humor to Deflect.
This is a tough one, but if you happen to have a good funny bone, then this may work well for you. Being able to make fun of something shows that you are clever enough to understand what is going and are witty enough to wring humor out of it. This is a different kind of smart that receives equal amounts of respect.

7. Know Your Audience.
The background of the people you are speaking to will suggest the best way to impress them with your knowledge. If you’re speaking to a technical person, talk business, he’s less likely to be knowledgeable about that. If you’re speaking to an athlete, don’t try to pretend to be a health know it all, you’re better off talking about science or literature.

8. Please Please, Don’t Use Big Words. Seriously…
Some people think that using words that have many syllables can make you sound more intelligent, like you’re a big dictionary. It’s not true. Most likely, your command of the english language is not strong enough to know the best situations to use a particular word, and you will either sound like you are trying too hard, or at worst, just plain stupid. Do you know when to use “expert” or “maven”? How about when to use “juxtaposed” versus “compared”? It is harder to create sentences with those kinds of words and easy to spot when someone doesn’t know how to use them. Trust me, there are a lot more people than you think who know how to use those words better.

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February 5, 2009 | In All Slacker Methods, Slackers and Life |

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Haha, I like this one. I try not to use the big words (not that I know many, har har). Usually, if one doesn’t execute well, it can make one sound outrageously imbecilic.

Comment by Herbert — February 14, 2009 #

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