Sunday, January 21, 2007

Obfuscation

Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific,
Fain would I fathom thy nature specific.
Loftily placed in the ether capacious,
Strongly resembling a gem carbonaceous.

(A.P. Gibbs uses this as an example of how unproductive it is to use big words and unnecessary phraseology in his book The Preacher and His Preaching.)

Oh, what does it mean? It's just another way of saying "Twinkle, twinkle, little star..."

6 comments:

Brittney said...

Ah, I love that! It's provoking me to pull Webster off the shelf :).

Rachel Marie said...

That is great! :-D

Anonymous said...

Ryan,

Even seen Mozart's 12 variations on Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific....? If that is really saying Twinkle, twinkel, little star. It's quite interesting.

Ryan said...

Hi Matthew! I don't have sheet music, but I have heard it on a tape we have. It's probably been ten years since I heard it!

Now I have to go find it...

Daniel said...

When I was in college we had a professor who painstakingly explained the difference between a good writer and a pompous windbag - the good writer could explain quantum physics to a three year old, and the pompous windbag couldn't order toast without using three words the waiter didn't understand...

I am woefully paraphrasing that discussion - but you get the idea.

Ryan H said...

Hi, Ryan,
It's been a while, but I thought to check back on your blog... This post is great, thanks! :-)

I've heard it said that there are two types of intelligent people in this world; Those who love to make simple things difficult, and those who like to make difficult things simple!