A while ago, I started a train of thought about Critical Thinking. Since the last one, I have been occupied with my current novel, Breaking Free, and haven’t been back to it since.

There is no idea that is so complicated that it cannot be explained simply, with simple words arranged in easy sentences.

When you hear a “big word” that sounds hard or complicated, spend some time finding out what that “big word” means.

Where did the big words come from?

English is not a pure language. It’s a mixture, kind of like Pidgin in PNG or like creole languages. We’re just used to it. Here is a short table showing that English words from a Saxon origin are often short, 3 or 4 letter words, but their synonyms from Latin/French are longer.

Saxon (Germanic) Origin	Latin/French Origin
Ask	Inquire
Buy	Purchase
Begin	Commence
End	Terminate
Help	Assist
Want	Desire

This is why we have “four letter words” in English that are rude and crude, like “piss” and “guts”. It’s much more polite and refined to use the French rather than the Saxon. “urinate” and “entrails”. Sometimes, before (or in this case, after) saying a rude, four letter word, we will say “Excuse my French”, but that’s a bit of a joke, because it’s not the French word we’re apologising for. It’s the Saxon one.

There’s more to the story. Many people in England used ancient Greek and Latin at university. Scientists and medical specialists borrowed Greek words directly, without translating their meaning into English. Often, when they came up with a new idea, they figured out what the Greek word would be for that idea. It sounded really smart.

“Hydrocephalus” is a scary sounding disease. The word simply means “water-head”. “The paleoproterozoic period” means “the old-early-life” period.” Abiogenesis means “non-living-beginning”. Zoomorphic means “seems-like-a-thing-that’s-alive.” Onomatopoeia means “The-name-of-the-action”. Drill down, and it’s not as complicated as it seems.

The effect of “big words.”

“Big words” are used between people as a shortcut: “Hey, you know that thing we talked about where one group of people did x, y and z and the other group of people did a, b and c?” is far too long to say every time, so we use big words instead. Big words save time, for people who know what they mean. They have another effect, though, of creating a divide between people: Those that use the big words and those that don’t (Sometimes, people will use big words without knowing their actual meaning. This can be dangerous and foolish, like the guy who went to hospital for an operation, but got castration and circumcision mixed up.)

When you unlock the meaning of big words, you often discover one of two things:

1. The word has been used like a magician’s cloud of purple smoke to deceive and misdirect. The person speaking or writing is trying to hide an idea from you. Or

2. The word is like a treasure chest, and if you unlock the meaning of that word, the whole rich idea falls open.

How to unlock a big word.

If you want to find out the meaning of “aggression,” for example, do an internet search of “aggression” and “etymology.” (Etymology is the study of the origin of words.) The diagram below shows how the word came to be:

Next, get a bit curious. Connect this with what you already know. See that Latin word “gradi”: Does it remind you of the word “gradient” that you learned in school? Let’s see if that word links up:

Yes, it does!

An Example

In our era, “big words” are often used in politics to hide ideas. Terms like “Intersectionality,” “voice,” “oppression,” “aggression,” “privilege” and “cisgender” need to be tested.

Take, for example, this quote, by feminist lawyer Kimberle Crenshaw. (I don’t know her and I’m not evaluating her quote. It’s just an example)

Intersectional feminism centres the voices of those experiencing overlapping, concurrent forms of oppression in order to understand the depths of the inequalities and the relationships among them in any given context.

What does this actually mean?

In order to drill down into its meaning, we need to risk being very blunt, almost to the point of rudeness. So please excuse my French. From what I can tell, the quote means something like this:

• Women have been bullied by men.
• Blacks have been bullied by whites.
• Trans have been bullied by non-trans.
• Therefore, trans black females, have been triple-bullied. They deserve the microphone more than anyone else.

I’m not disagreeing with her idea, and I’m not agreeing with it either. But now that we can see what it means, we are in a much better position to respond intelligently.