Think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do.

Aristotle, Greek philosopher

The ability to speak simply about difficult subjects without oversimplification is one of the marks of an effective speaker. We should certainly not fall into the trap of equating simplicity with being simplistic or superficial. What is simple may have depth, just as sophistication may disguise emptiness. Above all, don’t lose yourself and your audience in a maze of complications, real or imagined.

One reason some speakers choose to use jargon – any professional, technical or specialized language – is because they don’t understand one of the basic principles of communication, namely that both parties need to share the same frame of reference and set of common symbols (which here means vocabulary).

Another and perhaps more common reason is that the speaker wishes to impress the listener or audience with their knowledge or learning or importance. The best speakers don’t do that, even with their fellow professionals. ‘I’m allowed to use plain English because everybody knows that I could use mathematical logic if I chose,’ wrote logician and philosopher Bertrand Russell in Portraits from Memory (1956).

In fact, if you are an expert or specialist you don’t need to tell your audience that fact, least of all by self-consciously trying to display your expertise. Who you are conveys itself. As the Chinese proverb says, ‘A tiger does not have to proclaim its tigerishness.’

In fact, good orators and writers have known for centuries the value of using the simple word. In Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, of the total of 268 words, 190 have only one syllable.